The £106m acquisition of Yodel by InPost has been paused following an injunction application to the High Court by Shift and Corja, who claim that they possess warrants which collectively assert rights to over 66% of Yodel’s share capital.
At the initial hearing of the injunction application, the High Court judge sanctioned an order of undertakings placed on Yodel that restricts InPost’s ability to integrate the business, or from making any material changes spanning investment, leadership, restructuring and changes to the workforce. Specifically the court order prohibits Yodel going ahead to:
- Make changes to its share capital structure or issue new shares or register, approve or otherwise permit the transfer of any of its shares;
- Make changes to the composition of its board of directors;
- Take on new debt obligations (outside the ordinary course of business) or create any security or encumbrances;
- Dispose of any assets with a market value of £25,000 or more (outside the ordinary course of business);
- enter into any commitment (save in respect of employment) with a duration of six months or more (outside the ordinary course of business);
- Terminate the employment of any employees, save for gross misconduct;
- Novate any contracts with customers to any other entity; or
- Make any material alterations to the ‘Yodel’ brand
This doesn’t entirely appear to stop the acquisition going ahead, but it does shackle InPost’s ability to do much with Yodel other than to continue running it as a separate entity with their current management in place.
InPost’s stated ambition was to combine their largest out-of-home delivery network with Yodel’s strong
home delivery capabilities. They said that this would be a unique offering for merchants, through next-day to door delivery combined with the extensive out-of-home network resulting in one InPost brand delivering a comprehensive service to the UK market.
The ‘one InPost brand’ is probably the most interesting part, as that suggests that the Yodel name was planned to disappear from the UK and be replaced with InPost.
Prior to the announcement of the acquisition of Yodel by InPost on the 17th of April 2025, they were formally made aware of the warrants asserting rights to Yodel shares, so you might be safe to assume that they’re pretty confident that they’ll be nullified at some point and that they’ll be free to integrate Yodel as planned.
