"

Jungle,

FYI, Astar is a privately held company. Closed books.
Until 2002 DHL was privately held as well. Closed books prior to that.

A couple of points to consider:

1. DPWN had a net profit of over 5.5 Billion. 40% of their freight goes into, out of, or through the US. To say that the company loses 1 Billion a year in the US is very misleading when you have a global company. The US may be an expensive arena, but the company still makes money despite the costs here. To shut down the US market would shut down 40% of their business and they will not do that because they really DO make money and while it may not be IN the US, it is BECAUSE of the US that they do.

2. The losses in the US may include the air operation, but are not BECAUSE of the air operation. Prior to the Airborne purchase, the cost of doing business in the US was entirely acceptable to DHL. After the purchase, the scope of their business increased by 3 or 400 percent as did their costs.

3. The deal with UPS will accomplish two things: 1 - They will spend over 3 Billion dollars the first year to cover the costs of transferring the freight over to UPS, and 2 - they will have established a relationship with UPS (which involves cargo pricing and tracking) that will lead to a permanent "cooperative" partnership with them.

While we are thinking that this is the dumbest thing that DHL has ever done, it very well may be the smartest. If they fool the U.S. Judicial System and they do not lose the anti-trust suit when it is brought forth, they will have, in effect, created a merger of global proportions without ever having merged.

While I know this would spell disaster for us at ABX/Astar, I leave it to you to figure out if it will ultimately be to your benefit at UPS to be forever married to DHL.

8driver

After seeing postal losses mount to over a billion a year, soon may be sooner than you think for additional postal contracts. Both Fedex and UPS have had to fight this government held monopoly over their entire existence.


DHL contract-a good question, perhaps some of the ABX/Astar guys can tell us what their contracts say about the current situation.

What happened five years ago and what is happening now are two entirely different games. You still haven't showed us any concern at all by Congress over accounting issues. What DPWN makes in the rest of the world markets is completely irrelevant to their loss in the US. The argument you make is that they should subsidize you, and I don't think that is valid.
If this is such a massive conspiracy, don't you find it odd that only a few politicos have stepped up to complain, mainly those who's voting base is impacted?

Good post and you bring up many interesting points, however you are also arguing that because DHL is profitable in other world markets they should be forced to subsidize the losses in the US market. I don't think this will fly.

I agree that we don't know the ultimate evolution with these giants of logistics, but I think you can agree that they both plan to make money by not having to reproduce critical infrastructure on both sides of the pond.
This is probably not the best news for some of their employees, and it doesn't lead to big growth for either pilot group.

As far as closed books-DHL, UPS and ABX are indeed public and it is. as you have noted, folly to presume they are only subject to the respective company's review.

As far as fooling the Judicial system and creating a merger by deceit, I don't see that happening. What I do see is two very large companies purchasing services from a menu as it suits them to make both of them more competitive. This happens across other industries quite often and it is becoming more common with true global industry. Our US government Postal monopoly in fact follows this same method.

Actually, they don't have to fool anyone. The reality of the situation is that there is NO ANTI-TRUST case to bring about. I beg some of you to please look up the definition and then talk to someone such as a lawyer who know something about the matter. Don't trust the politicians with their "catch phrases" about "anti-trust" investigations. You guys are being led down a road that does not exist. Sorry......

Actually some of the best Anti- Trust lawyers work for the very politicians you speak of and we have been on Capital Hill for over 2 months doing just that talking to them. They say there is a strong case! I beg you to please talk to them.

You haven't met the UPS lawyers have you?? Good luck..and I do mean it.

Realize the lawyers perspective. They will get paid FIRST regardless of all else.

Kinda correct... We (Emery) weren't bought out by UPS. The snake of a parent company that owned us decided to bankroll a Canadian company after we lost a DC-8 and crew in CA. They knew the Feds were looking at us and our MX and they also knew how bad it was gonna be. Shortly there after we landed with the gear up on a DC-8 in BNA (due to MX) and the Feds took up residence at the Emery HQ in Dayton. As things progressed the freight was slowly moved over to Capitol, and ExpressNet (?). THen after we nearly had a majoy incident at SEA the Feds shut us down and the rest is history. When the Airline was shut down the parent company CF simply filed for bankruptcy and we were all on the streets. Of course, a class action lawsuit was filed so we could actually get paid and the company simply changed the name to Menlo (Frieght Forwarding) and basically told us TS. Menlo was then bought by UPS with the plans from the begining to close the Menlo Dayton location.

Not saying your wrong maybe it was the big plan of the CEO's to make Brown the big dog and get some nice payouts to start closing facilities.

Actaully the best anti-trust lawyers work for Fedex, UPS, DHL or any private company. Being a lawyer for a politician is just a stepping stone to the private sector. :rolleyes: