LETTER DROP STAMPED OUT

A WAVE of stamp price rises has helped Royal Mail stem a slump in their letters arm.

The privatised postal giants increased prices across the board at the end of March, with a first-class stamp up another 1p to 65p.

That, together with a flood of mailings in the run-up to the general election, limited the fall in revenues in their letters business to four per cent in the three months to June 25 – down 13.9 at 7390.2 334.0 166.3 733.9 3426.0 Halfords Hays HSBC Imperial Brands International Airlines Grp 621.0 ITV 175.7 Kingfisher 302.0 Land Securities 1026.0 Legal & General 257.6 Lloyds 66.9 Marks & Spencer 330.1 Morrison 247.2 National Grid 941.3 Next 3712.0 Old Mutual 195.2 Pearson 630.0 Prudential 1752.0 Reckitt Benckiser.. 7812.0 RELX 1628.0 Rentokil Initial 274.8 Rio Tinto 3448.0 Rolls-Royce 916.0 -0.5 -0.8 -3.1 -16.5 -2.5 -1.6 +3.0 +16.0 -0.8 -0.2 +2.4 -0.4 +9.0 +39.0 -2.2 -1.5 -9.5 +47.0 0.0 +1.0 -24.5 0.0 and bumper business in their parcels arm meant group sales rose one per cent.

The results come as Royal Mail face the risk of industrial action over a pensions shake-up for nearly 90,000 workers. Oil = $48.77 Royal Mail 411.1 RSA 641.5 RBS 250.9 J Sainsbury 246.8 SSE 1474.0 Severn Trent 2232.0 Serco 112.7 Sports Direct 300.0 Shell 2065.5 Sky 967.0 Smith & Nephew 1320.0 Smith WH 1673.0 Stagecoach 181.9 Standard Chartered804.3 Standard Life 420.1 TalkTalk 184.0 Taylor Wimpey 182.0 Tesco 174.3 Thomas Cook 94.8 Unilever 4290.5 United Utilities 875.5 Vodafone 219.6 Wolseley 4600.0 Trinity Mirror 97.3 +12.3 -2.5 -2.5 -1.2 -7.0 -17.0 +0.4 +2.0 +2.0 -4.0 -7.0 -2.0 -0.9 -6.6 +2.7 +3.0 +0.9 -0.2 +0.7 +15.5 -4.0 -1.3 -65.0 +1.2