After a decade and a half, Frank Appel is no longer at Swiss Post. On his last day at the logistics giant, shareholders pay him respect. Now another German takes over.
The outgoing Post boss Frank Appel sees the Bonn logistician in a very good position when he leaves. “The company is in better shape than ever before,” said Appel at the group’s annual general meeting in Bonn.
Deutsche Post is in very good hands with his successor, Tobias Meyer. That doesn’t mean that he will always do everything right – “I also made mistakes that I had to correct,” said Appel. All in all, the way was right. Meyer is the right person to manage the post office in the future.
Appel headed Deutsche Post for 15 years. During this time, the Bundespost, which was privatized in the 1990s, developed into a major global corporation that now only generates a sixth of its operating profit in its core business, i.e. domestic letter and parcel shipping.
“Deutsche Post made into a global corporation”
The earnings pearls are global express services and freight business. At the AGM, shareholder representatives paid tribute to Appel for his performance. “You have turned Deutsche Post into a global corporation without losing its domestic roots,” said Vanda Rothaker of Union Investment.
Meyer, who, like his predecessor, used to work for the management consultancy McKinsey, has been on the Post board of directors since 2019 and is now moving to the top. The 47-year-old recently announced that he intends to stay the course of his predecessor. One focus should continue to be sustainability, such as increased electrification of the vehicle fleet. Swiss Post has around 600,000 employees worldwide, a good third of whom work in Germany.
Source: Stern
