Germany's post -- now Deutsche Post DHL -- was privatized in 2005 and has become a major player in the global delivery and logistics business.

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And it expanded from moving cash and valuables into a general parcels joint-venture with Deutsche Post.

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Only the ex-monopolists at Deutsche Post can be pleased, which many suspect was the point of the wage agreement.

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Deutsche Post-owned DHL, but its general financial health is often monitored by conditions in rail companies like Union Pacific and CSX Corp.

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FedEx competes chiefly with UPS and Deutsche Post-owned DHL, but its general financial health is often monitored by conditions in rail companies like Union Pacific and CSX Corp.

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He told Forbes.com that it was not only mail operators like Deutsche Post (other-otc: DPSTF - news - people ) and France's La Poste looking to use high-speed rail networks--now big projects such as the new freight railway between the Netherlands and Germany had attracted a wider mix of businesses.

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Mr Mehdorn is spurred by the example of Deutsche Post, whose McKinsey-bred management has turned it from a sleepy sorting office into a global logistics firm.

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The European Commission launched antitrust investigations into Deutsche Post , Germany's state-run post office.

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Rivals mutter that Deutsche Post's huge investment in non-letters businesses is designed to ensure there is enough work for the 33 state-of-the-art package-sorting centres that it built at great cost a few years ago.

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He told Forbes.com that it was not only mail operators like Deutsche Post and France's La Poste looking to use high-speed rail networks--now big projects such as the new freight railway between the Netherlands and Germany had attracted a wider mix of businesses.

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By next year a quarter of Deutsche Post's turnover is expected to come from logistics (freight-forwarding and the like), up from almost nothing last year.

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