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Business Post Group chief Guy Buswell has reaffirmed his position that the UK Mail brand is the future for the company. The group - which already operates its parcels and mail divisions under the brand - has confirmed that courier arm UK Today will be the next to go under the UK Mail banner, within the next six months. Buswell says that aside from pallet network UK Pallets, the only thing that will remain is the Business Post Group overall brand. "And we'll probably change that as well at some  point," he says. "It [UK Mail] says more about what we do."

Business Post's interim results for the six months to September 2007 show the group has upped pre-tax profit by 182% to £4.8m after exceptional items. Group revenue was up 9% to £167m. UK Pallets saw a revenue growth of 3% to £15m, but UK Today's revenue dropped by 10% to £5.7m. Business Post is optimistic that growth opportunities for the courier business exist in the current customer base now that it is to be renamed UK Mail. The mail division was the star performer with revenue rising by 59% to £60m and operating profit up by 65% to £4.3m, closing in on the parcels arm, which saw revenue fall by 8.1% to £87m, including lost revenue from the terminated FedEx contract. Operating profit for parcels fell by 1.5% to £6.5m. Buswell confirms that the mail division now has a 7.5% share of the entire UK mail market. "By the beginning of the next financial year, we could be collecting one in 10 of all mail items."

He says  business-to-business side operations within the parcels arm are now thriving, but the fierce competition in the business-to-consumer (B2C) market was the reason behind an 8% revenue drop in that area. But he is encouraged by October's B2C results, adding that "we're much more resilient to the fall in volumes because it's such a small part of our overall business". The optimism has not stopped Business Post's cost-reduction plan for the parcels division - with the introduction of signature capture and the transfer of four more franchises to corporate ownership since May, with 12 still in private hands.