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The decline in Royal Mail’s letters business is so steep that radical surgery will be needed to preserve the one-price-goes-everywhere postal service, according to wire service reports.
A report due out Wednesday from Richard Hooper, the U.K.’s former telecommunications regulator, said the state-owned former monopoly needs further heavy investment in automation, but is hobbled by a pension deficit that has doubled to 7 billion pounds ($10 billion) in the past three years.
The report will offer such recommendations as a government takeover of the pension deficit, further automation to improve efficiency and an overhaul of how postal services are regulated.
