The PIN Group was a German courier and postal services company. It belonged to PIN Group S.A., a Luxembourg-based corporate affiliation made up of several German postal companies.

History and shareholding

The PIN Group originally traded under the name ''Briefdienstleistungsunternehmen PIN intelligente Dienstleistungen AG'', a postal services company founded in 1999 in Berlin. In 2004, Axel Springer AG and the Holtzbrinck Publishing Group each bought a majority shareholding of 30% from the company founders and venture capital company DKB Wagniskapital GmbH. In October 2005 the remaining shares of the PIN founders were acquired by WAZ-Mediengruppe and the Luxembourg

investment company An investment company is a financial institution principally engaged in holding, managing and investing securities. These companies in the United States are regulated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and must be registered under the ...

Rosalia Investment S.A. before founding the PIN Group. In the summer of 2006 the newspaper publishers Madsack,

M. DuMont Schauberg M. DuMont Schauberg is one of Germany's oldest and largest publishing houses. It was founded by Bertram Hilden in 1620. The company has been run by the Neven du Mont family since 1805, when Marcus du Mont acquired the ''Kölnische Zeitung'' ...

, Rheinisch-Bergische Verlagsgesellschaft and

W. Girardet W. may refer to: * SoHo (Australian TV channel) (previously W.), an Australian pay television channel * ''W.'' (film), a 2008 American biographical drama film based on the life of George W. Bush * "W.", the fifth track from Codeine's 1992 EP ''Bar ...

merged their postal services divisions into the company, receiving in return a 10 per cent holding of PIN Group AG. Following the takeover of Briefnetz Süd GmbH & Co. KG (BNS), a consortium of postal services providers owned by 12 newspaper publishers in Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, since April 2007 the PIN Group has operated a mail delivery network throughout the whole of Germany. To offer delivery services to German authorities and government departments, the PIN Group acquired Ulm-based postal services provider DirektExpress. Since June 2007, the majority shareholder in the PIN Group has been the Axel Springer publishing company, after raising its holding from 23.5% to 71.6%. Axel Springer bought these shares from WAZ, Holtzbrinck and Rosalia for €510 million. The holding company, PIN Group S.A. is responsible for laying down the strategy of the entire corporate affiliation and planning day-to-day operations, which are managed and organised by the German subsidiaries and shareholding companies. In February 2007 around 7000 people worked for the PIN Group. The chairman of the executive board,

Günter Thiel Gunter or Günter may refer to: * Gunter rig, a type of rig used in sailing, especially in small boats * Gunter Annex, Alabama, a United States Air Force installation * Gunter, Texas, city in the United States People Surname * Chris Gunte ...

announced that the company planned to expand to more than 20,000 employees by the end of 2007 German union for service providers, ver.di
/ref> In the autumn of 2007 PIN Group successfully acquired business from a variety of Germany cooperative savings banks. In November 2007, the German

coalition A coalition is a group formed when two or more people or groups temporarily work together to achieve a common goal. The term is most frequently used to denote a formation of power in political or economical spaces. Formation According to ''A Gui ...

government set the

minimum wage A minimum wage is the lowest remuneration that employers can legally pay their employees—the price floor below which employees may not sell their labor. Most countries had introduced minimum wage legislation by the end of the 20th century. Bec ...

for postal workers at €8 to €9.80 per hour. Due to the cost squeeze on owner Axel Springer, the company was quoted by the German Financial Times as examining "a variety of options" ranging from selling the company to closing down operations entirely. On 5 Dec 2007, PIN Group subsequently announced it was to lay off 1000 employees, more than 1/10 of the workforce, simultaneously criticising the German government for "consciously taking into account that investments worth billions to Germany ... would go to waste".ARD reports PIN Group to lay off 1000 workers (German)
/ref> In his 2007 Christmas address to the nation, German President Horst Köhler described the introduction of the

in the postal sector as "risky", stating that "a minimum wage that can not be paid by competitive employers destroys jobs".Stuttgarter Zeitung, 29 December 2007 (German) The PIN Group CEO, Günter Thiel, resigned his position on 17 Dec 2007 after Axel Springer Publishing turned down his offer to buy its remaining 63.7% share in the company. His plan had been to continue to manage the company under his own finances.Süddeutsche Zeitung reports resignation of PIN Group CEO (German)
/ref> On 29 December 2007 the delivery company saarriva, which is based in the German State of Saarland and is partly owned by PIN Group filed for bankruptcy. On 23 January 2008 it was announced by

Horst Piepenburg Horst Piepenburg (born 9 March 1954) is a German jurist specialising in bankruptcy law. He is the co-founder of Piepenburg & Gerling, one of the leading bankruptcy law firms in Germany, and has worked more than 1,000 insolvency cases, including ...

, the newly appointed chairman, that PIN would agree to pay its workers the newly defined minimum wage which had been set at €9.80 per hour. Reports at the end of January 2008 stated that chairman Horst Piepenburg had entered discussions with American holdings, including the Blackstone Group, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) and Advent International, although the company subsequently denied the claim.Reuters (German
/ref> It is now bankrupt.

"Green post"

The PIN Group uses the colour green to differentiate itself from Deutsche Post, the postal services company formerly run as a monopoly by the German state, whose post boxes and delivery vans are in a distinctive yellow. Postal workers announce their arrival with the words ranslated"PIN, green post". Deutsche Post AG took legal steps to prevent this but lost the case in 2005 when the Hamburg state court ruled that this did not cause confusion with regard to the term "post".Hanseatic state court, 23 Aug 2005
/ref> The PIN Group sees itself as the leading alternative provider of postal services in Germany, preparing itself for the abolition of Deutsche Post's exclusive right to deliver letters under 50 grams, which ran out on 1 January 2008.Businessweek.com 2 Aug 2007
/ref>

Critics

A number of trade unions and employee representatives have protested at the treatment and employment terms of PIN staff claiming that the company can only undercut Deutsche Post postal charges by hiring cheap workers on salaries just above the

. The PIN Group has argued that, unlike arch-rival Deutsche Post, it is obliged to pay value-added tax.Kirsten Huckenbeck: PIN AG – Prekarisierung (nicht nur) im Norden
/ref> In February 2007, leading German trade union Ver.di announced plans to negotiate a tariff agreement under regular arbitration with the company. In November 2007, with the impending advent of privatisation raising awareness of the issue, a number of areas of the media - led by newspapers belonging to leading shareholder Axel Springer - condemned moves by politicians and the unions to introduce a

for postal workers.polaronline.de - Das studentische Online-Magazin an der Freien Universität Berlin
/ref>

Shareholdings

The PIN Group corporate affiliation encompasses the following subsidiaries:Bundesanzeiger Verlag , Willkommen
/ref> * PIN Mail Hannover GmbH, Hanover (formerly ''CITIPOST Gesellschaft für Kurier- und Postdienstleistungen mbH'')

Citipost Citigroup Inc. or Citi ( stylized as citi) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services corporation headquartered in New York City. The company was formed by the merger of banking giant Citicorp and financial conglome ...

* DBU Die Briefunion GmbH,

Brakel Brakel () is a municipality in the Belgian province of East Flanders in the Denderstreek and the Flemish Ardennes. The name is derived from a Carolingian villa ''Braglo'' first mentioned in 866 and located in the center of Opbrakel. Since 1970, t ...

* PIN Mail Münsterland GmbH, Münster (formerly ''Brief Direkt GmbH'') * PIN Mail GmbH, Alach by

Erfurt Erfurt () is the capital and largest city in the Central German state of Thuringia. It is located in the wide valley of the Gera river (progression: ), in the southern part of the Thuringian Basin, north of the Thuringian Forest. It sits in ...

(formerly ''THPS Thüringer Post Service GmbH'') * PIN Mail GmbH,

(formerly ''ANNEN-POST GmbH'') * PIN Mail GmbH, Düsseldorf (formerly ''NET-DBS Netzwerk Deutscher Briefservice GmbH'') * PIN Mail GmbH,

Essen Essen (; Latin: ''Assindia'') is the central and, after Dortmund, second-largest city of the Ruhr, the largest urban area in Germany. Its population of makes it the fourth-largest city of North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne, Düsseldorf and D ...

(formerly ''WPS Westdeutscher Post Service GmbH'') * PIN Mail GmbH, Hamburg (formerly ''Punkt Direktvertriebs GmbH'') * PPD, Bremen (Privater Postdienst), * PIN Mail GmbH,

Kassel Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Kassel and the district of the same name and had 201,048 inhabitants in December 2020 ...

(formerly ''ANNEN-POST Kassel GmbH'') * PIN Mail GmbH, Neumünster (formerly ''Porto sparen im Norden GmbH'') * PIN Mail GmbH, Wildau (formerly ''Brief - Express Röder GmbH'') * PIN Mail GmbH, Woltersdorf (formerly ''Speedy-Express GmbH'') * BriefNetz Süd postal network * DIREKTexpress Holding AG Ulm The PIN Group also owns * PIN MAIL AG, Berlin, which has now been renamed Pin Mail AG, Berlin.

References

External links

*
Spiegel">Ending of Deutsche Post's monopoly, Businessweek.com quoting Spiegel
-online {{DEFAULTSORT:Pin Group Germany Postal system of Germany">Postal_organizations.html" ;"title="Logistics companies of Germany Postal organizations">Germany Postal system of Germany