Firstly, because DHL is the only major public postal operator in Europe to have so successfully negotiated the transition to modernity, and rapidly established itself as a world leader in logistics.

The success of this strategic pivot is illustrated by an operating profit and dividend payout that have doubled in fifteen years. This is certainly less impressive than at FedEx, but better than at UPS - two players which, incidentally, have never had the DNA of a public utility. On the Old Continent, no peer could even remotely match this performance.

For DHL, the current fiscal year is a continuation of the previous one, although cash profit - or free cash flow - is down 9%, from EUR3.3 billion in 2023 to EUR3 billion in 2024. This decline is largely attributable to the international freight division, where business is in the process of normalizing after epic rate inflation in 2022.

It is to be hoped that the subject of customs duties, back in fashion these days, will not create additional difficulties. All the more so in the Asia-Pacific region, where DHL, which has already suffered from increased competition in recent months, has built up an extensive network.

It should also be pointed out that management's new forecast of a further EUR3 billion in free cash flow next year contradicts its expectations of two years ago, when it announced a target of EUR3.5 billion in free cash flow by 2025.

Finally, MarketScreener analysts confess to questioning the relevance of the recently extended and expanded share buyback plan. Not only would it lead to an increase in indebtedness if activated, but - more importantly - current valuation levels are not necessarily very attractive.

In any case, these announcements seem to indicate that acquisitions have taken a back seat and that DHL, with its global footprint and range of services particularly appreciated by industrialists and professionals, now intends to concentrate on management that is entirely geared to returns of capital to shareholders.

This is a positive development. Nevertheless, MarketScreener would have preferred a further increase in the dividend, especially since, like many of the German-style "bond shares" so popular with institutional investors in Germany, the Group is primarily valued on the stock market precisely on the basis of its dividend yield.

In this respect, DHL's share price has clearly hovered around an average of 4% for the past twenty years, in a perfectly defined range between a low of 3%, from which it more or less systematically rebounds, and a high of 5%, which it has never really exceeded.