Ex-Tory minister to advise Royal Mail's billionaire Czech owner
The Czech billionaire who has taken over Royal Mail has hired a former Conservative minister to advise him on his business interests.
Greg Hands, who served as trade minister before losing his seat in last summer's election, will take up the role of special adviser to Daniel Kretinsky.
Mr Kretinsky's EP Group said Mr Hands would provide strategic counsel focused on regulatory and market developments in the UK and Germany.
It said the appointment would help the company to 'expand its portfolio across both countries, aligning with the company's commitment to secure and sustainable energy solutions'.
It comes just weeks after Mr Kretinsky secured his £3.6bn takeover of Royal Mail in a deal that resulted in the postal service falling into foreign ownership for the first time in its 500-year history.
In addition to Royal Mail, EP UK owns a number of energy assets in the UK, including a gas-fired power plant in Stallingborough and the South Humber Bank station, both in Lincolnshire.
EP has enjoyed surging profits in recent years thanks to market turmoil sparked by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
It is also one of a handful of energy companies to have cashed in millions of pounds when Britain's wind farms are turned off because of congestion on the grid.
Mr Kretinsky said: 'We are delighted to welcome Greg Hands to EP Group. His deep understanding of the UK and German business and energy landscapes, coupled with his extensive experience in government and international trade, will be invaluable as we navigate the evolving sectors in these key markets.
'Greg has unique capabilities for the job, including fluency in German and good Czech, and understands many of our markets very well.'
Mr Hands said: 'I have known Daniel Kretinsky for a long time, and I know that EP Group has a strong track record in energy and infrastructure.
'I look forward to contributing to its continued growth and commitment to energy security and sustainable energy solutions in these regions.'
While Mr Hands's role appears to be focused on Mr Kretinsky's energy assets, the appointment comes at a time when much of the billionaire's focus is likely to be on Royal Mail.
He has outlined plans to invest heavily in parcels as he attempts to transform Royal Mail into a modern logistics giant. But he will also be required to navigate discussions with ministers and regulators over the future of Royal Mail's universal service obligations, which require it to deliver six days a week at a uniform price.
Bosses have argued that stringent rules have left the company financially unsustainable amid a sharp decline in letter sending. Last month Ofcom said Royal Mail had missed its delivery targets in the latest financial year, raising the prospect of a potential fine for the third year running.
The regulator is planning to allow Royal Mail to end second-class mail deliveries on alternate days and Saturdays and to water down its delivery targets.
However, the company is still disputing so-called 'tail of the mail' back-up targets, which it argues will add 'significant' costs and further push up prices.
Mr Kretinsky, who also owns a major stake in Dutch postal service PostNL, has already made a number of legally binding commitments – including maintaining Saturday deliveries for first-class letters, protecting the Royal Mail brand and keeping the company's headquarters and tax base in the UK – to help ease concerns about the deal.
International Distribution Services (IDS), Royal Mail's parent company, on Monday confirmed its delisting from the London Stock Exchange and the resignation of a number of board members, including Keith Williams, the chairman.
The Communication Workers Union, which represents postal employees, said the departures were 'welcome news' for staff across the UK.
It said: 'Led by chairman Keith Williams, the previously senior leadership team have overseen the gross mismanagement of one of the UK's most important companies, they have destroyed the service provided to millions of customers and businesses and they have callously targeted their own workforce in the attempt to create a low wage, gig economy-style employer.
'Keith Williams and many of his colleagues represent everything that is wrong with modern business leaders: paid and rewarded for failure whilst having zero vision.'
Mr Williams has argued that EP Group's takeover offer was fair and that the commitments 'should ensure that IDS continues to deliver the key elements of the universal service in the UK and protect the interests of the workforce'.
Martin Seidenberg, the IDS chief executive, and Michael Snape, the IDS chief financial officer, will continue in their respective roles and remain on the board.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNBC
2 hours ago
- CNBC
China's grueling ‘996' work culture is being debated by European startups — 7 founders and VCs on why they are resisting
The European startup scene was recently shaken by a LinkedIn debate with some venture capitalists applying pressure on founders to embrace a culture of overwork to compete on a global stage. The "996" work culture reigns supreme in China and has been adopted by various tech giants including Jack Ma's Alibaba and Bytedance's TikTok, but the system has also been the subject of much protest in recent years. Tech workers in Europe told CNBC in 2021 that they're turning down job offers, rejecting interviews, or even quitting their roles, upon learning of TikTok's 996 work culture. Sebastian Becker, general partner at Switzerland-based VC company Redalpine added to the debate on LinkedIn by addressing the new German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who has called for removal of the legal work limit of eight hours per day in Germany in a bid to increase efficiency, while keeping the 40-hour week. Becker said Merz' proposal doesn't go far enough, as "40 hours a week won't cut it." "In Silicon Valley, 60-70 hour weeks aren't the exception — they even have a term for it: 996 — 9am to 9pm, six days a week... we can have the same amount of smart, ambitious people, but if we're consistently being outworked, we won't win," Becker said. Index Ventures Partner Martin Mignot in London explained on LinkedIn that 996 originated in China and has "quietly become the norm" at startups internationally. Part of the reason behind this most recent push is that there's a persistent view that Europe's tech and startup scene is lagging behind the U.S. and China, both of which have produced tech giants and are known for intense work cultures. However, Suranga Chandratillake, general partner at Balderton Capital, told CNBC Make It that these views are outdated as Europe has produced deca-corns in recent years— companies worth more than $10 billion including Klarna, Revolut, Wise, and The continent has yet to produce a trillion-dollar tech firm like Nvidia. "The European tech market and ecosystem is keeping up today with the U.S. and Asia... back in the 1980s the European tech scene was behind the tech scene on the West Coast of the US, but that's not the case now," Chandratillake said in an interview. The calls for Europe to adopt the 996 work culture sparked a wave of backlash. CNBC spoke with seven European startup founders and VCs on why they disagree. The obsession with China's 996 or Silicon Valley's 24/7 work culture emerges from a glorification of hustle culture in the startup landscape, founders and VCs said. "It's about a fetishization of overwork rather than smart work…it's a myth," Chandratillake said. "California is very good at telling stories and there's a lot of mythmaking around the concept of what startups look like…. there is hard work involved but if you really spend time in that ecosystem, you will discover that lots of people work really hard, but there are also periods where they don't work." Nina Mohanty, a Silicon Valley native and founder of London-based Bloom Money, said there are actually "lasting effects and unintended consequences" to adopting an aggressive overwork culture, "You only have to think about Revolut and the culture that they have is probably the closest that we've seen in Europe to the 996 culture, and they struggled," Mohanty told CNBC. "Their churn rate was incredibly high within their team, and they even struggled to get their banking license, and their culture was actually cited as one of those reasons." For its part, Revolut told CNBC it operates in a "high-growth, high-performance environment." "In line with this, we've evolved how we support our people: through value-based behaviours, structured development, and a culture that's collaborative, challenging, and built for scale," a spokesperson from Revolut said. Noa Khamallah, general partner at Don't Quit Ventures, pointed out that there's "no need for 996" and that these values are often at odds with both the European mindset and regulation. "Europe's most successful companies — from Spotify to SAP to ASML — didn't achieve dominance through overwork but through sustainable innovation cultures," Khamallah said. He offered the examples of Silicon Valley's Uber and Meta, both companies that expanded into Europe and faced massive regulatory pushback. "These examples reveal how Silicon Valley's 'move fast and break things' ethos often breaks against European values around worker rights, privacy, and sustainable business practices," Khamallah said. An always-on culture decreases retention and creates a revolving door of talent, Sarah Wernér, co-founder of Husmus, told CNBC. "Overwork today is a productivity crisis tomorrow," Wernér said. "Personally, I hope my competitors are doing 996. It makes poaching great people a lot easier when they decide they've had enough." Dama Sathianathan, a senior partner at Bethnal Green Ventures said it's unhelpful to "prescribe" working hours, especially if it means putting workers' wellbeing at risk. "Optimizing labor doesn't always lead to better productivity, or help with differentiating from other companies long-term, if you've made work devoid of meaning," Sathianathan explained. Meanwhile, the youngest generation at work are less likely to put up with overworking and tend to prioritize work-life balance. Jas Schembri-Stothart, founder of Luna, a health and wellness app for teen girls, said 996 will drive young talent away from European startups. "People may tolerate overwork for a while, but eventually it leads to churn and even resentment, especially with Gen Z and younger millennials, there's much less tolerance for toxic hustle cultures," Schembri-Stothart said. Founders insist that instead of increasing working hours, startups need more funding and resources to position themselves as key players in the global startup scene. "What Europe really needs isn't more hustle-porn it's more aggressive funding," Wernér said. "With the right level of capital, our startups can hire enough talent to work intensely without breaking themselves. If a team of 10 is burning out to keep up with a 50-person U.S. VC or Chinese government-backed startup, the problem isn't their stamina, it's their cap table." In fact, since 2015 Europe's tech startups have missed out on nearly $375 billion in growth-stage funding, with founders losing out on a potential $300 billion in European investments, according to Atomico's State of European Tech report published in 2024. Additionally, one in two companies raising funding turn to the U.S. for capital rather than Europe. "What European startups really need is access to the right resources — funding, talent, and support — to grow, innovate quickly, and scale effectively," Schembri-Stothart said. "The venture landscape in the U.S. is a different ballgame altogether, and it's tough to compete with that without a stronger ecosystem here. Founders acknowledged that the startup life requires intense hustle and grind, but it's a more nuanced picture than just adopting 996. Timothy Armoo, co-founder and former CEO of Fanbytes, an influencer marketing firm that he sold for eight figures in 2022, told CNBC that he's a "huge supporter" of this new 996 push, but admitted that timing is key. "I think there are seasons but I also think that if you are a first-time founder or if your primary goal is basically wealth creation, I'll be very candid, if this is your season, and you're stepping back, then you're not serious about it," he said. Armoo said there are no excuses because AI allows entrepreneurs to be maximally efficient as it can reduce certain time-consuming manual tasks. Meanwhile, Bloom Money's Mohanty, said that when she's not sleeping, she's working. "I think early stage teams tend to almost unknowingly or without actually saying it, work the 996 life, because when you are early stage, you just have to hustle harder with less, and especially if you're the founder, you're always on and always working, and it can be very, very difficult to turn off." Schembri-Stothart draws the line at exploiting her team to produce more work. "It's my choice to work at the weekend, but I'd never expect that on my team, it's definitely not glorified to push your teams to breaking point. Silicon Valley tech exec Dion McKenzie warned that expectations of a 996 culture could make VC funding even more out of reach for early-stage startups. "My fear is that as these new norms and trends become the status quo and benchmarks for getting funded, it excludes so many brilliant founders that value their mental health and/or can't commit to a 996 due to caregiving responsibilities or being a parent," Mckenzie said.
New York Post
6 hours ago
- New York Post
Germany plans to revamp shelter system in case of Russian attack by 2029: ‘We are concerned about the risk of a major war'
Fearing Russia could attack another European country within the next four years, Germany is planning to expand its network of bomb-proof bunkers and shelters, according to reports. 'For a long time, there was a widespread belief in Germany that war was not a scenario for which we needed to prepare,' Ralph Tiesler, the head of the Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance, said in a recent interview as reported by The Guardian. 'That has changed,' Tiesler said. 'We are concerned about the risk of a major war of aggression in Europe.' Advertisement 4 Germany's civil protection agency chief is warning that the country is not prepared for a Russian attack. Fears are mounting that the Kremlin — following its three-year war in Ukraine — could be capable of attacking a NATO country by 2029, so Germany must 'muster a functioning, comprehensive defense system by then,' Tiesler said. And time is of the essence. Germany cannot rely on building new bunker facilities in time so Tiesler's agency is working on plans to transform tunnels, metro stations, underground garages, car parks and the basements of public buildings into shelters. Advertisement To be presented this summer, they would create shelter for 1 million people, he estimated. The country has about 2,000 bunkers left over from the Cold War but fewer than 600 are in working order and most will require pricey renovations, Tiesler explained. Plus, those would only shelter about 480,000, less than 1% of the German population. 4 Germany's Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance is working on plans to transform metro stations and tunnels into shelters. 4 Germany's existing bunkers are nearly 80 years old and in need of renovations. Advertisement Finland, on the other hand, has 50,000 bunkers that could hold 4.8 million people, or 85% of its population, according to Tiesler's office. The agency leader is urging German Chancellor Friedrich Merz to fund the plans, as well as efforts to revamp apps, road signs and siren systems that would be used if residents need to take shelter. 'We don't want to unnecessarily frighten anyone, but we must nevertheless clearly warn of the danger of a military attack,' Tiesler told news site Zeit Online. 4 Russia's brutal war in Ukraine has caused fears in other European countries. AP Advertisement Russia's invasion of Ukraine has sparked similar concerns across Europe, motivating some countries to begin defense preparations. Poland, which borders Russia and Ukraine, plans to spend almost 5% of GDP on defense this year, the more than any of its NATO partners, the BBC reported last month.
The Hill
7 hours ago
- The Hill
Sunday shows preview: Trump-Musk spat leaves admin reeling; ‘Big, beautiful bill' hits speed bump
President Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk's feud spilled out in public on Thursday, with the world's richest man and the world's most powerful leader trading barbs that engulfed news cycles in Washington and abroad. Musk, a Trump ally, was vocal about his disappointment with Trump's 'Big, Beautiful Bill' currently sitting in the Senate. Musk, who spent millions during the 2024 presidential campaign to help elect Trump, called the massive piece of legislation a 'disgusting abomination.' Trump then weighed in on Thursday at the White House during German Chancellor Friedrich Merz's visit, saying, 'Elon and I had a great relationship. I don't know if we will anymore.' The spat intensified, with Musk floating the prospects of creating a third party, claiming that without his political contributions, Trump would not be victorious against ex-Vice President Harris in November and accusing the president of having ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Trump threatened to cut off federal contracts awarded to Musk's companies. Later on Thursday, Musk signaled he might be open to brokering a truce with the commander-in-chief. After speaking with several news outlets Friday morning, Trump suggested he is ready to move on and indicated that he will not be speaking with Musk for a while. Trump told CNN Friday morning that he is 'not even thinking about Elon' and added that the SpaceX and Tesla CEO has 'got a problem. The poor guy's got a problem.' In the Senate, Trump's agenda bill, which passed the House chamber last month, has sparked concerns and criticism from GOP senators. The first group of GOP Sens., which consists of Susan Collins (R-Maine), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), are arguing they could vote against the bill if it slashes Medicaid benefits. Others, including Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) have previously said they would not back the legislation if it retains the current debt and spending levels. The GOP can have three defections total if all Democrats vote against the legislation. Sen. Johnson will be on CNN's 'State of the Union where he will likely discuss if any of his concerns regarding the 'Big, Beautiful Bill' have been addressed. As part of a push to root out waste, fraud and abuse within Medicare, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said this week that a bill sponsored by Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), that would crack down on Medicare Advantage overpayments known as 'upcoding,' could be inserted into Trump's massive legislation. Cassidy will be on NewsNation's 'The Hill Sunday,' where he will likely discuss the latest on the reconciliation package along with his recent visit to the White House. NewsNation's 'The Hill Sunday': Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.); Rep. Sarah Elfreth (D-Ma); U.S. Chamber of Commerce chief policy officer Neil Bradley. ABC's 'This Week': Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy; House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.). NBC's 'Meet the Press': Sens. James Lankford (R-Okla.), and Cory Booker (D-N.J.). CNN's 'State of the Union': 'Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), and Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.); Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.). CBS' 'Face the Nation': National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett; Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.); Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas); Save the Children U.S. President and CEO Janti Soeripto. 'Fox News Sunday': Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought; Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.); Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas). Fox News' 'Sunday Morning Futures': Secretary Of Interior Doug Burgum, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.); House Ways And Means Committee Chairman Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.); Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.).
