International Distribution Services plc (IDS)

International Distribution Services plc (IDS)

Previously known as:
Previous Name: ROYAL MAIL PLC
Previous TIDM: RMG

Blog posts

Invitation to Meet with Royal Mail, April 8th 15.30pm

Following the Royal Mail's AGM in 2018, at which 70% of shareholders rejected the Director's Remuneration Report, the Royal Mail are embarking on a series of consultative meetings with major shareholders and shareholders' representatives to discuss their concerns. Such a meeting has been called specifically for representatives of UK Shareholders Association and ShareSoc and will be held at the Royal Mail's premises at Victoria Embankment London on April 8th and attended by Orna Ni-Chionna, NED and Chair of the Remuneration Committee; Julia ...

Royal Mail Remuneration

I always thought that being a Chief Executive and being paid millions was a 24/7 job. I am amazed the Royal Mail could not recruit somebody from the millions of people who live in the UK. I am very angry that the details of Mr Back's £5.8million payout were buried in note 26 on page 144 of the company's annual report and not explained in the first paragraph of the Remuneration Committee Chair's statement. Hiding the pay of the new Chief ...

Technology change impact – Pearson and Royal Mail

I wrote an article for this month’s ShareSoc Informer Newsletter that covered forecasts for the future. One of the aspects covered was the impact of technology on many companies...

Royal Mail and Myners’ report on other Government sell-offs

The Government sell-off of a major stake in Royal Mail was controversial in many ways. It proved to be even more so when the placing price of £3.30 was rapidly eclipsed by a market price which rose to as high as £6 although it's been mostly downhill since (at the time of writing it's 420p). The long term holders who were given priority in the share allocation soon turned out to be anything but with 44% of the shares changing hands ...

Royal Mail IPO – the wrong kind of encouragement

There was a very intelligent letter in the FT today from a Dr Alex May. To quote: “I fear the sale will distort public perception of investing in shares”. It went on to suggest that it would mislead people into believing that making money in shares was easy, and implied it would encourage speculation rather than sound investment in a portfolio of shares. Even more astonishing was the revelation on the front page that some investment banks valued it at nearer the ...

Royal Mail flotation – private investors losing out both ways

Some ShareSoc members are very disappointed that they will not get any shares in the Royal Mail flotation because they subscribed for more then £10,000 worth. These are my personal comments: This seems to be discrimination against the moderately wealthy and those who just happened to have some spare cash in the bank.  Either everyone should have got the same allocation of £750 of shares, or there should have been a graduated scaling back. It's just illogical. What is being done is that ...

Royal Mail flotation – first thoughts

Some sketchy information on the prospective flotation of Royal Mail has been released. You can obtain it here: www.gov.uk/royalmailshares and register your interest. Note that you don’t have to do so via a stockbroker but can purchase the shares directly, which may be preferable. Here are some initial comments and what to look out for when you read the prospectus in due course (which all investors should do before investing): First it’s worth pointing out that they are privatising Royal Mail and Parcelforce, ...

ShareSoc News

Royal Mail – ShareSoc supports new pay policy

At the 2018 Royal Mail AGM, over 70% of shareholders voted against the remuneration report. Following extensive consultation, the Royal Mail have developed a new remuneration policy. As part of the consultation they consulted with the UK Shareholders' Association and ShareSoc members. On balance we recommend members to vote for the new remuneration policy and the remuneration report at the upcoming AGM, which is (sadly) inconveniently located in Exeter. Below is the content of a letter we have written to Royal Mail: 20 ...