Poste Italiane CEO: Waiting for Instructions on Stake Sale

We heard from the Italian government that they they plan actually to sell a stake in paste. Do you know how much do you know by why not. So I hear or I read yeah no we we’re waiting for instructions and indication from the shareholder. So you know we’re just managing the company. We presented our five year plan on the 20th of March and we carry on business as usual waiting for directions. I’m sure you meet a number of investors, do they understand what you have been building? Do you think there’s a here there’d be a fair evaluations, people are interested, they understand you know the opportunities and the challenges. I think now is 7 years that you know we launched the original delivered 20 to 22 plan, investors starting to understand the idea and the strategy of building being a multi product platform. So we are showing them that we’re delivering every single vertical in every single product vertical, but we’re getting the benefit of the platform effect. So I think I find the investors much more informed, much more interested into the story and that’s you know really creating good momentum for us. So have you also potentially you know tested investor appetite for for a deal for they do it this kind of a reverse, Yeah, it’s kind of reverse. I mean they mentioned that if and when they would be interested but again you know we we have to wait for the right time as you know the General Manager of the Ministry of Finance stated yesterday publicly. So talk to me a little bit, I mean there there’s for example you you have also a telecoms component. So yeah, for foreign investors, right, they think of post Italiana, they think of Royal Mail. Yeah it’s not the same institution because you’re trying to build as you say like a multi platform. No, I think it’s very different from most of the incumbent and historical postal operator because we diversified starting from you know end of last century. So the real market diversification started late 90s into financial products and that’s you know postal savings which are government guaranteed is life insurance saving products then diversified into payments and became you know the largest issuing payment institution in in the country and home services. You know the post office is everywhere in Italy. You know it’s a natural place where to go and you know buy a home service such as you know broadband or electricity or gas retail always on the retail side so. So when you look at your various you know businesses or actually angles, what do you think will perform better than others in this kind of again inflationary environment maybe the ECB cuts, but it’s it’s all a little bit uncertain. Well that’s we managed to stabilize our investment portfolio. We take no credit risk by law, so invest into government securities. So we’re mainly fixed rate. So we’re much less sensitive to interest rate fluctuations and in the plan the area that will grow the most over the next five years is the everyday household needs. So is you know the payments is the TLC is the energy and gas. In terms of volumes, in terms of you know, bottom line contribution, you know the lion’s share is still with our insurance and postal savings which is you know the core. Is there any appetite and for example increasing your exposure to telecoms, Telecom Italia may be looking for a partner after the sale of the grid. No, I think it’s you know we we have you know a small 5% market share and this is enough. I think the government has designed a specific Rd. for that company and that’s fine by us obviously. So is there any change in like what are your day-to-day challenges? I think it’s that’s a good question. I think it’s really execute execution, execution. The plan is there. It has been an acceleration of the final end of the last plan and now we have to basically execute and eat the mainly on 2 lines, one, getting closer to clients with our commercial service model in financial products. So we need to be and become a bit more dynamic, not transactional, but more relational oriented in the post office. And then there is the big transition of the operation of mail. Italy unfortunately is very, very low volumes in mail and that is pushing us to do something before UK, Germany, France or the US will have to do it. Why is it so? Historical reasons, you know seven years ago there was a very good invoicing and procurement electronic law. So in Italy there are no more paper invoices since seven years. Italians are not using for personal reasons or private reasons mail as much as I see, you know around Europe. Bottom line, we have 35 items per year per head with you know European average of 130 which is bad news in terms of volumes and business and we have to turn it into you know a good news and opportunity to put our network to do something else. And obviously that’s parcel. You also parcel I mean which are increasing I imagine, I mean do you see the the volumes after COVID? Yeah, there has been a kind of you know, there’s been you know leveling off just after COVID, but then you know the market started growing, you know, high single digit from you know 2022 onwards. Really I was also excited to have you on because we talk about economies and we talk about you know consumer spending the abstract but you live this every day because you have customers that you interact with that you see and you see the numbers. What is the health actually of of the of the Italian consumer right now the what we see from our data. We also run you know some small models of now casting trying to understand you know how things are really developing short term and the signals we have is that you know consumption is relatively holding relatively well. We don’t see the investment side. It’s true that the consumption of our mass clients because we’re really on the mass, you know the man of the street we’re not on the you know high net worth climb base is mainly anchor around the primary goods, OK. So you have less volatility around those, but from from our point of view is you know demand is, is holding. I mean the ECB may be the first one to cut which is quite incredible and if you told me a few months ago no one, no one would have believed it, would it be welcome actually for your customers an interest rate cut. I think you know from our clients endpoint is not a major, you know it’s more on the you know industrial and production side, you know the banking sector, you know their players, you know our client base doesn’t really have you know maybe the mortgage side mortgage started since nine months to to go down. So that’s what retail probably will be more sensitive to. But going back to the share sale and I know you know you’re you say you’re expecting a call to say when and where, I don’t know if I 100% believe that, but when, I mean the markets are quite volatile at the moment, right, because of the Middle East, there’s a lot of unknowns like do you worry about just market volatility unrelated to post Italian? Yeah. Obviously you know from what we see there is still relatively good liquidity. Markets are open for primary and secondary offerings From what we hear from brokers, timing is everything in markets, but you know we’re here for the long run. So, you know, we’re not, you know, worried.