Royal mail

[stokoe]

As from today you can apply for royal mail shares,anybody having a dabble.   

[SRMoore]

As from today you can apply for royal mail shares,anybody having a dabble.   

Yes, I am. I'm looking forward to finally getting something back from Royal Mail after part 'owning' it for 30 years.

[DRiddle]

Yes, I am. I'm looking forward to finally getting something back from Royal Mail after part 'owning' it for 30 years.

I suppose there are many who would argue that you, me, everyone including the public and businesses have always 'got something back' from the Royal Mail.

That being, a ridiculously low price for the delivery of a letter. Even now at 60p a letter, I still think that's cheap to get it anywhere in the country within a day or two. Just a few years back it was 30 odd pence.

Once the price caps are lifted, we'll see rapid rises for essentially the same, perhaps even an inferior, service.

As for buying shares, I'd be very careful at checking exactly which 'bits' of Royal Mail are included in the deal.

If it's heavily reliant or includes in a significant way the 'letters' section of RM, you'd be better of buying shares in Tippex or Blockbuster video.

That division of the RM (letters) is loosing about £100 million a year and the numbers of 'letters' of whatever sort posted is dropping year on year.

More and more businesses (banks, utilities, credit cards, insurance companies etc.) are incentivising electronic billing, e-statements, e-renewals etc. Social networking, Skype, twitter etc has all but 'killed off' the concept of writing your friend a letter. Competitions are usually telephone or web based. Google's algorithms are taking over advertising bit by bit.... It's hard to know what the postmen/women are actually wheeling around in their trolleys these days.

Each to his own, but it's not something i'll be adding to my portfolio.