Stakeholders

Shareholders are developing a critical view with regard to the social responsibility of companies in which they invest. This development will continue as an increasing number of successful companies demand social responsibility guarantees from their suppliers and partners. Major clients are now producing their own social responsibility reports and will expect other companies to do the same: not merely to produce reports, but to act accordingly. Social responsibility and long-term reliability go hand-in-hand and are at the very heart of continuity.

We publish our social responsibility report at the same time as our annual report. Furthermore, we obtain external assurance on all data in our social responsibility report prior to publication. This supports our claim for credibility, delivers accountability and benefits shareholders as concurrent publication allows them to ask questions at the annual general meeting of shareholders.

We have re-geared our balance sheet to reflect the reduced risk profile of the group. A €1 billion share buy-back programme that was part of this ‘Focus on Networks’ strategy has been completed successfully and we have returned the majority of the proceeds from the sale of our former logistics division to our shareholders through another €1 billion share buy-back programme. In 2006, we realised € 1.7 billion from both share buy-back programmes.

TNT aims to be the company that creates the most value in its industry. Our main measure in this regard is total shareholder return. We focus on the following (GRI) key performance indicators:

• Total shareholder return
• Contracts with suppliers
• Costs of goods, materials and services
• Providers of capital
• Retained earnings   

The GRI indicator numbers are given in the heading of each table.

Shareholder value

Since January 2005, TNT has returned about €2.7 billion to its shareholders through share buy-back programmes and through dividends, which have increased considerably in the past years.

TNT’s share price rose by 22.5% in 2006. This resulted in TNT outperforming its peers and the AEX index in total shareholder return.

Direct economic impact

The economic dimension of social responsibility concerns our impact on the economic circumstances of our stakeholders and on economic systems on a local, national and global level. For a detailed overview of our financial indicators, please refer to our 2006 annual report. These financial indicators focus primarily on informing our shareholders on profitability. In contrast, certain economic indicators in this report focus more on the manner in which we affect the stakeholders with whom TNT has a direct and indirect economic interaction, such as suppliers, external staff, providers of capital and the manner in which we reinvest our earnings in our company.

The reported numbers were influenced significantly by the share repurchase plans. In 2006, we repurchased shares worth €1.7 billion.

Contracts with suppliers

It is TNT’s policy to pay suppliers in accordance with the agreed payment terms whereby we strive for 95% performance. However, a number of suppliers request an 8-day or 15-day term of payment on their invoices without prior agreement on this (shorter) term. We generally pay within 30 days. Our performance, including these deviations, is estimated at around 90%.