Deutsche Post AG (ISIN: DE0005552004, lse: DPO) is a German postal, logistics and courier company, successor to the former German state-owned mail monopoly. With its headquarters in Bonn, the corporation has 520,000 employees in more than 220 countries and territories worldwide and generated revenue of € 63.5 billion ($ 97.8 billion) in 2007. Today Deutsche Post AG, operating under the tradename Deutsche Post World Net (DPWN), is the world's largest logistics company.

Corporate divisions

Deutsche Post operates through four business divisions:

• The mail division delivers approximately 70 million letters in Germany, six days a week and provides services across the entire mail value chain, including production facilities at central hubs, sales offices and production centers on four continents, as well as direct connections to more than 200 countries.
• The express division transports courier, express and parcel shipments all over the world, combining air and ground transport, under the DHL brand.
• The logistics division, which also operates under the DHL brand, provides a range of international logistics services and has long-term contracts with major and multinational companies in a variety of industrial sectors. Its business units are: DHL Exel Supply Chain (logistics services), DHL Freight (road and rail transports) and DHL Global Forwarding (air and sea transports).
• The financial services division operates through its Deutsche Postbank AG subsidiary, a retail bank network in Germany, which has approximately 14.5 million customers.

The company was privatised in 2000 and is now the world's leading logistics provider.

Mergers and acquisitions

Deutsche Post acquired Airborne Express in August 2003 and integrated it into DHL, which is now known as DHL Express.

On 20 September 2005 the company announced that British logistics company Exel had agreed on a £3.7 billion (€5.5 billion) takeover. The combined revenue of the two companies was €50 billion over 2004.

In 2006 DHL GlobalMail UK merged with Mercury International.

Trivia

• In 1998, Deutsche Post World Net began to acquire shares in DHL, finally reached majority ownership in 2001, and completed the purchase in 2002.
• In 2002 it was granted a license to deliver mail in the United Kingdom, breaking Royal Mail's long-standing monopoly.
• Deutsche Post offers a service called a Garagenvertrag (literally "garage agreement" in English) to its German customers. The postman can leave packets and parcels in a specified place (such as the garage, or a neighbour's house) if the addressee is not at home to receive them. This on the one hand saves the recipient a trip to the post office to pick up their mail. On the other hand, any item left at the specified place is regarded as “delivered” and hence not covered by Deutsche Post's insurance anymore.
• Deutsche Post's exclusive right to deliver letters under 50 grams in Germany expired on 1 January 2008 following the implementation of European legislation. A number of companies are vying to challenge Deutsche Post's near monopolistic hold on letter deliveries, including Luxembourg-based PIN Group and Dutch-owned TNT Post Businessweek.com 2 Aug 2007.
• In 2008 the company issued 20 Rudolf Hess stamps after Neo-Nazis used Deutsche Posts Plusbrief Individuell, a "design-your-own" stamp service which delivers pre-franked, personalised envelopes. 1. Spokesman for the Deutsche Post stated that this was an accident. The usuall screening process for illegal and offensive content didn't work in the case of Nazi post stamp as it is the case in other accidents where content remains blocked; this was explained as result of "unknown causes"2.