EU postal services: Berenberg expects growth to sustain in 2021
26/11/2020 10:46
** Berenberg sees the EU postal sector sustaining some of
the 2020 growth, with long-term structural trends in both mail
and parcels accelerated by the pandemic
** It expects volumes to grow by an average of 11% in 2021,
preferring operators with a higher exposure to e-commerce and
better geographic profiles
** It views markets with high urbanisation and household
density as more conducive to higher margins in parcel and mail
delivery than more ruralised geographies; prefers Benelux to
Austria and Portugal
** The broker sees Austrian Post's POST.VI margin and
growth outlook under the most threat from Amazon AMZN.O , but
expects PostNL PTNL.AS and Bpost BPOST.BR to benefit from
Amazon's logistics presence close to their borders
** Berenberg initiates coverage of CTT CTT.LS with "sell"
and target price of 1.85 euros, expects the mail business to
struggle as e-substitution intensifies
** It ups Bpost to "buy" from "hold", raises target price by
68% to 11.75 euros as it sees the company well placed to
capitalise on resilient e-commerce trends in Belgium.
** It cuts PostNL to "hold" from "buy", pointing out to
limited further upside and confirms "sell" for Austrian Post as
mail volume declines seem to be accelerating
((Elizaveta.Zhuravleva@thomsonreuters.com;))