Post pays States £1.4m dividend after successful year

Thursday 19 November 2020

Guernsey's postal service had a very busy financial year, handling 29 million parcels and producing an operating profit of £1.4m.

The successful year means a dividend can be paid to the States of Guernsey. Its ordinary dividend will be £444,000 and, due to its strong balance sheet, the company will also be paying a special dividend of £1m.

“It’s something that we look at regularly,” said Chief Executive Boley Smillie. “As a discipline, any surplus resources we have, we pay back to our shareholder.”

Pictured: Guernsey Post has handled 29 million items of mail during the last financial year.

The company is handling far fewer letters than parcels and this situation has been amplified by the current pandemic.

However; the revenue lost through reduced letters in the States-owned utility's latest financial year - 1 April 2019 to 31 March 2020 - has been more than made up by the increase in parcel handling and delivery.

“We’ve also been more efficient and delivered in a more efficient way and hopefully we can see those results coming through,” said Mr Smillie.

The GP has been pursuing various avenues to grow the business, including getting the lottery distribution contract and creating its new grocery delivery service ‘IsleDeliver’.

Pictured top: Chief Executive Boley Smillie said the last decade has seen the GP pay out £20.8 million in dividends to the States of Guernsey.