In addition to its personal service activities, the La Poste group wishes to invest in home health care. She should acquire Asten Santé in the coming days.
“Watching over my parents”, “My medications at home”. The latest services offered by La Poste are clearly geared towards the elderly. The historical group is now diversifying towards the silver economy, the senior market, but more broadly in the health sector, in her personal activity and in the investments she makes.
Today, it wishes to acquire a majority stake in Asten Santé, a player in home healthcare. Oxygen therapy, management of tracheostomy or ventilated patients … The company offers equipment and training in its use, for these patients with respiratory failure, suffering from sleep apnea, or for infusion, nutrition and insulin therapy.
This is not a first in health for the postal group. Through his digital activity, he was already the operator of the pharmaceutical file and the shared medical file. “The deployment of digital assets of the Post around health, and in particular health data, is important for the future,” explains Delphine Mallet, director of the silver economy business unit of the La Poste group. By acquiring a stake in Asten, we are becoming more visible through the provision of services to the general public. “
Home medical equipment
Asten Santé, whose current turnover is around 100 million euros, was originally an associative network created in the 1950s by hospital doctors – pulmonologists and resuscitators – for the management and home appliances for patients with respiratory failure.
Nathalie de la Villemarqué, Chairman of the Management Board of Asten Santé: “Our job is to make the patient as observant and autonomous as possible with his equipment, but we do not offer any medical procedure …”
“Today, significant concentration continues in the home healthcare provider market,” explains Nathalie de la Villemarqué, Chairman of the Management Board of Asten Santé. Small players find it difficult to resist because regulations and pricing evolve, and they are thus led to join large groups. “
In addition to a solid financial base, the healthcare group also hopes to take advantage of La Poste’s notoriety and territorial coverage to increase its visibility with healthcare professionals and patients, but also to establish itself in regions that it needs. still escape, like the Mediterranean or the North. “The support of the La Poste group to go and discuss with structures located in these regions is a real plus”, she adds.
“A local ecosystem”
On the side of La Poste, the acquisition of a stake is part of a logic of diversification of its activities, to compensate for the decrease in mail volumes, explains Delphine Mallet.
“Even if it is partly offset by the progress of the parcel thanks to e-commerce, we wish to continue the diversification of our services, so as to be able to maintain in the long term what makes our originality: a very dense network of factors and a proximity networking. For us, services and home are in our DNA. It is therefore the logical continuation. “
She had thus invested in Axéo last year, which offers, for example, cleaning, DIY, gardening, babysitting interventions … “We are seeking to constitute an ecosystem of local services, which will be operated directly through letter carriers. , or our subsidiaries, so that La Poste is a major player in home services, ”continues Ms. Mallet.
Letter carriers are not trained in patient care. They will not be involved, at least initially, in the activities of Asten Santé. “We have not considered it, but we can think that in the long term, through training and bridges between the subsidiaries of the La Poste group, postmen could fulfill certain home health missions. “
+ 400% in two years
The merger with Asten Santé could also encourage other home health players to join La Poste. These ancillary activities have been growing rapidly since 2015. They then represented 17 million euros. According to La Poste’s projections, they should stand at 80 million euros in 2017, an increase of around 400% in two years. The objective set for 2020 is to fully offset the impact of the drop in mail volume, which already represents only 40% of the group’s turnover.
La Poste and Asten Santé are now awaiting the green light from the Competition Authority, which has been analyzing the acquisition file for a few weeks. She should give an answer in the coming days, so that the stake can take place this summer.
“We are a major player in our historical activities, the competition authority therefore reviews all our significant diversification projects to ensure the way in which we are going to carry them out, and that there is no mix of genres between our activities, ”concludes Delphine Mallet.
.
