Industry Postal services Website whistl.co.uk Headquarters Marlow, United Kingdom Type of business Privately held company | Number of locations 7 depots Number of employees 2,700 (2015) Founded 2002 | |
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Key people Nick Wells, Chief executive Services Addressed mail sorting, parcel processing, logistics Owner Management (82.5%)
PostNL (17.5%) Profiles | ||
Whistl customers and the power of direct mail
Whistl, formerly TNT Post UK, is a postal delivery company operating in the United Kingdom. The company primarily competes with UK Mail, UPS, Parcelforce, DHL, Hermes, Royal Mail and Yodel. It processes over 25% of all the UK's mail - over 4 billion items per year.
Contents
The company was a wholly owned subsidiary of the Dutch delivery company PostNL until October 2015, when a management buyout was completed and PostNL became a minority shareholder.
History
As TNT Post, the company was originally a subsidiary of the TNT Group. In 2011, the group split to form TNT Express and PostNL. TNT Post UK became a subsidiary of PostNL, and an agreement was reached with TNT Express to retain the TNT name until the end of 2014 at the latest. It began delivering in West London in April 2012, later rolling out its end-to-end service in Manchester and Liverpool. The company rebranded as Whistl in September 2014.
In May 2015 Whistl announced that it would suspend door-to-door deliveries in London, Liverpool, and Manchester after the private equity investor LDC, a division of Lloyds Bank, decided not to fund further expansion citing "ongoing changes in UK postal market dynamics and the complexity of the regulatory landscape" and an attempt to stem losses. Whistl confirmed on 10 June 2015 that the service would formally end, with 1,800 jobs at risk of redundancy. The company concentrated on processing and sorting mail and parcels and reverted to using Royal Mail's final mile delivery service rather than its own.
In October 2015 Whistl's management completed a buyout of the company from its parent PostNL, although PostNL retained a 17.5% holding. James Greenbury was subsequently appointed to the board as a senior independent director on 2 November 2015.
Locations
Whistl has depots in the UK at Newtownabbey (Northern Ireland), Glasgow (Scotland), and Leeds, Warrington, Bristol, Iver and Rugby in England. Whistl's head office is in Marlow.