𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

The boss of Royal Mail owner International Distribution Services (IDS) landed a bumper pay and bonus package worth almost £7 million last year in spite of plunging group profits, it has been revealed.

The latest annual report from IDS showed group chief executive Martin Seidenberg was paid £6.9 million in salary, bonuses and long-term incentive awards for the year to March 31 – more than three times the £2.1 million he picked up the previous year.

His bumper pay was boosted by long-term incentive share awards payouts, which had been deferred for three years and were triggered because of the £3.6 billion takeover of IDS by Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky’s EP Group last year.

But his jump in pay came as the group reported underlying earnings slumping by a fifth to £222 million as the firm’s GLS parcel arm was hit by regulatory changes in Italy and a challenging trading environment in Canada.

GLS earnings fell 17.1% to £237 million over the year.

IDS said in its annual report: “The vesting of awards was accelerated at the point of takeover.

“No long-term incentive plan awards vested in 2024-25.

“This, along with the accelerated vesting that occurred in 2025-26, explains the increase in emoluments of the highest-paid director.”

Group-wide bottom line pre-tax profits fell by more than two-thirds to £141 million from £429 million the year before.

Its UK postal arm Royal Mail saw annual operating profits more than halve after labour costs soared following minimum wage hikes and an extra £133 million employee tax bill.

Royal Mail’s operating profits plunged to £96 million in the year to March 31, down from £198 million the previous year.

Royal Mail’s employee costs rose by 5.5% over the year, including a 4.2% pay increase for frontline staff and the impact of a £133 million national insurance contributions hike.

The previous year had also benefited from the 2024 general election boost to letter mailings.

On an underlying basis, Royal Mail earnings lifted to £5 million, up from £2 million a year earlier, as revenues rose 2.6% to £8.4 billion.

It said extra costs included another £57 million related to the firm’s £3.6 billion takeover by Mr Kretinsky’s EP Group, on top of £28 million in costs of the acquisition the previous year.

The group said Royal Mail’s parcel volumes rose 7% to 1.4 billion over the year, but addressed letters fell 10% to 5.7 billion.

It said the decline reinforced the need to overhaul the universal service.

Royal Mail is pressing ahead with the rollout of changes nationwide that will see second class post delivered every other weekday, with the Saturday service being scrapped across the UK.

It comes after an agreement with trade unions, which had been holding up the extension of the changes across its full network of around 1,200 delivery offices.

Royal Mail is under increasing pressure to improve service levels, with regulator Ofcom launching an investigation earlier this month into the firm’s failure to meet its delivery targets over the past year.

Royal Mail revealed in May it had missed targets for another year running, achieving 75.7% of first class mail arriving the next working day over the 12 months to the end of March and 90.2% of second class mail delivered within three working days.

It was fined a record £21 million by Ofcom in October last year for missing targets in 2024/25.

Mr Seidenberg, group chief executive at IDS, said: “Following Royal Mail’s agreement with the unions, we are rolling out universal service changes across the UK which will lead to a more efficient, reliable and sustainable service for our customers.”