The PIN Group was a German courier and

postal services The mail or post is a system for physically transporting postcards, letters, and parcels. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems. Since the mid-19th century, national postal syst ...

company. It belonged to PIN Group S.A., a

Luxembourg Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small lan ...

-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 Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

. In 2004,

Axel Springer AG Axel Springer SE () is a German digital and popular periodical publishing house which is the largest in Europe, with numerous multimedia news brands, such as ''Bild'', ''Die Welt'', and ''Fakt'' and more than 15,000 employees. It generated tot ...

and the

Holtzbrinck Publishing Group Holtzbrinck Publishing Group () is a privately held German company based in Stuttgart which owns publishing companies worldwide. Through Macmillan Publishers, it is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies. In 2015, it merge ...

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 Funke Mediengruppe (formerly ''WAZ-Mediengruppe'') is Germany's third largest newspaper and magazine publisher with a total of over 500 publications in eight countries. WAZ-Mediengruppe is privately held by the Funke family and is headquartered i ...

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, Rheinisch-Bergische Verlagsgesellschaft and W. Girardet 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 Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...

and

Baden-Württemberg Baden-Württemberg (; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a German state () in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million inhabitants across a ...

, 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 Ulm () is a city in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Danube on the border with Bavaria. The city, which has an estimated population of more than 126,000 (2018), forms an urban district of its own (german: link=no, ...

-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 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 Axel Cäsar Springer (2 May 1912 – 22 September 1985) was a German publisher and founder of what is now Axel Springer SE, the largest media publishing firm in Europe. By the early 1960s his print titles dominated the West German daily press ma ...

, the company was quoted by the German

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nik ...

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 Horst Köhler (; born 22 February 1943) is a German politician who served as President of Germany from 2004 to 2010. As the candidate of the two Christian Democratic sister parties, the Christian Democratic Union of Germany, CDU (of which he is ...

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 The Saarland (, ; french: Sarre ) is a state of Germany in the south west of the country. With an area of and population of 990,509 in 2018, it is the smallest German state in area apart from the city-states of Berlin, Bremen, and Hamburg, and ...

and is partly owned by PIN Group filed for bankruptcy. On 23 January 2008 it was announced by Horst Piepenburg, 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 Blackstone Inc. is an American alternative investment management company based in New York City. Blackstone's private equity business has been one of the largest investors in leveraged buyouts in the last three decades, while its real estate b ...

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts KKR & Co. Inc., also known as Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., is an American global investment company that manages multiple alternative asset classes, including private equity, energy, infrastructure, real estate, credit, and, through its strate ...

(KKR) and

Advent International Advent International is a global private equity firm focused on buyouts of companies in Western and Central Europe, North America, Latin America and Asia. The firm focuses on international buyouts, growth and strategic restructuring in five core ...

, although the company subsequently denied the claim.Reuters (German
/ref> It is now bankrupt.

"Green post"

The PIN Group uses the colour

green Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 Nanometre, nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by ...

to differentiate itself from

Deutsche Post The Deutsche Post AG, operating under the trade name Deutsche Post DHL Group, is a German multinational package delivery and supply chain management company headquartered in Bonn, Germany. It is one of the world's largest courier companies. ...

, 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 Deutsche Post AG, trading as Deutsche Post DHL Group, is a German multinational package delivery and supply chain management company headquartered in Bonn, Germany. It is one of the world's largest courier companies. The postal division delive ...

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 union A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ( ...

s and employee representatives have protested at the treatment and employment terms of PIN staff claiming that the company can only undercut

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 A value-added tax (VAT), known in some countries as a goods and services tax (GST), is a type of tax that is assessed incrementally. It is levied on the price of a product or service at each stage of production, distribution, or sale to the end ...

.Kirsten Huckenbeck: PIN AG – Prekarisierung (nicht nur) im Norden
/ref> In February 2007, leading German trade union

Ver.di (''Verdi'' (stylized as ''ver.di''; �vɛʁdiː; German: ''United Services Trade Union'') is a German trade union based in Berlin, Germany. It was established on 19 March 2001 as the result of a merger of five individual unions and is a memb ...

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

- 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 Hanover (; german: Hannover ; nds, Hannober) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Lower Saxony. Its 535,932 (2021) inhabitants make it the 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-largest city in Northern Germany ...

(formerly ''CITIPOST Gesellschaft für Kurier- und Postdienstleistungen mbH'') Citipost * DBU Die Briefunion GmbH, Brakel * PIN Mail Münsterland GmbH,

Münster Münster (; nds, Mönster) is an independent city (''Kreisfreie Stadt'') in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also a state distr ...

(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 i ...

(formerly ''THPS Thüringer Post Service GmbH'') * PIN Mail GmbH, Brakel (formerly ''ANNEN-POST GmbH'') * PIN Mail GmbH,

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in th ...

(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 (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

(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 Neumünster () is a city in the middle of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. With more than 79,000 registered inhabitants, it is the fourth-largest municipality in Schleswig-Holstein (behind Kiel, Lübeck and Flensburg). History The city was fi ...

(formerly ''Porto sparen im Norden GmbH'') * PIN Mail GmbH,

Wildau Wildau () is a German town of the state of Brandenburg, located in the district of Dahme-Spreewald. It is located close to Berlin and easily reached by the ''S-Bahn''. As of 2019 its population was 10,404 inhabitants. History The history of Wilda ...

(formerly ''Brief - Express Röder GmbH'') * PIN Mail GmbH, Woltersdorf (formerly ''Speedy-Express GmbH'') * BriefNetz Süd postal network * DIREKTexpress Holding AG

The PIN Group also owns * PIN MAIL AG,

, 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 Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

Postal system of Germany