Deutsche Post to Take $874 Million Charge on DHL
Germany-based Deutsche Post AG will write down the value of its DHL Americas unit by $874 million, Bloomberg reported Wednesday.
The 600 million euros writedown comes as the North American business unit struggles to make a profit, Bloomberg said.
“Deutsche Post World Net still expects the Express division to make consistent progress in underlying profit and to reach [earnings before interest and taxes of between 900 million euros and 1.1 billion euros [$1.3 billion and $1.6 billion] in 2009,” Deutsche Post said in a statement.
The writedown of assets such as aircraft, trucks and office equipment will hurt Deutsche Post’s 2007 net income, though it will not its plans to raise the dividend by 20%, Bloomberg said.
Chief Financial Officer John Allan said in a conference call that the company was committed to retaining its presence in North America, Bloomberg reported.
DHL Americas is ranked No. 3 on the Transport Topics 100 listing of U.S. and Canadian for-hire carriers.
