- published: 01 Nov 2009
- views: 136369
Royal Mail is the government-owned postal service in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Royal Mail Holdings plc owns Royal Mail Group Limited, which in turn operates the brands Royal Mail (letters) and Parcelforce Worldwide (parcels). Post Office Ltd. (counters) and General Logistics Systems, an international logistics company, are wholly owned subsidiaries.
Royal Mail Holdings is a public limited company in which the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills owns 50,004 ordinary shares plus 1 special share, and the Treasury Solicitor holds 1 ordinary share.
Historically, the General Post Office was a government department which included the Royal Mail delivery business, represented in Her Majesty's Government by the Postmaster General, a Cabinet-level post. It became a statutory corporation known as the Post Office in 1969. Most of the duties were passed to Consignia plc, a public limited company wholly owned by the Her Majesty's Government, in November 2001 and the dormant Post Office Corporation was dissolved in 2007. Consignia changed to Consignia Holdings plc, then Royal Mail Holdings plc, the current name.