History

2000
January: Acquisition of Pakke-Trans A/S, the Danish parcel company and General Parcel partner, headquartered in Kolding.
March: Acquisition of General Parcel Austria, the Austrian parcel service provider and General Parcel partner, headquartered in Ansfelden.
May: Acquisition of Nederlandse Pakket Dienst (NPD), the Dutch parcel company and General Parcel partner headquartered in Utrecht.
May: Acquisition of Extand, the French express and parcel service provider, headquartered in Toulouse. May: Acquisition of the two parcel businesses Domberger Paket Dienst GmbH & Co. KG, Augsburg, and Deutscher Paket Dienst Dachser GmbH, Kempten. The two former DACHSER subsidiaries manage a total of six DPD locations in southern Germany and Saxony.
August: Parcelforce (UK) becomes a General Parcel partner.
August: Foundation of Pakke-Trans Sweden. In cooperation with Schenker, a NIF (National Interface) is created, which ensures access to the Swedish market
November: Foundation of GP General Parcel Ljubliana. Following the acquisition of the Slovenian parcel service M-Express (1.11.2000) and General Parcel in Slovenia (1.1.2000) both companies were merged.
December: Acquisition of an equity interest in Szybka Paczka Sp. z o.o. the Polish parcel and express company and General Parcel partner. GLS acquires a 25.1 percent interest from the Dutch logistics group Therab B.V.
December: Acquisition of an equity interest in Direzione Gruppo Executive S.p.A., the franchisor of the Italian parcel organization.

2001
June: Acquisition of a majority interest in Stafetten A/S, the Danish express and courier service.
July: Extand becomes a General Parcel partner.
December: Acquisition of General Parcel Finland.
December: Direzione Gruppo Executive S.p.A. becomes a 100 percent subsidiary of GLS. The franchise system remains intact.

2002
October: On October 1st 2002, GLS launches the common GLS brand across the whole of Europe
November: “Cross Border”: development of a shared Internet platform which makes all the logistics processes required for international parcel processing a lot easier.

2003
January: Transactions in Italy: GLS takes-over the franchisee Bevegni. March: “UniQuE“ (Unified Quality in Europe) – development of a harmonised quality management system for the whole of Europe.
May: Foundation of GLS Norway as a NIF (National Interface), which secures the access to the Norwegian market.
November: “GLS IT Services” is launched. The new company serves to support the organizational transition of the GLS project "Cross Border’ into day-to-day operative work.
December: Transaction in Italy: on December 1st 2003, GLS acquires the parcel businesses of the Italian franchisee Verona Services /Mantova Services Srl in the areas of Verona, Mantova and Bussolengo.
December: GLS Hungary becomes a 100 percent subsidiary of GLS

2004
January: Integration of the GLS Germany IT department into GLS IT Services
February: General Parcel ceases operations: the day-to-day management and further development of the European network is now the direct responsibility of GLS.
May: Foundation of GLS Slovakia to further strengthen the parcel network in East Europe.
May: Since 1st of May, coverage of the three Baltic States is provided through a delivery agreement with a regional, Lithuania-based parcel and express company that fulfils GLS high quality standards.

2005
January: GLS Poland – 100% GLS. GLS Poland becomes fully owned subsidiary of GLS B.V.
February: From February 1st 2005 GLS will serve Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania via its new network partner LEX SYSTEM.
March: Since 1st of March the Spanish GLS subsidiary “Extand Sistema SL” operates under the name “GLS Spain”.
April: On April 1st GLS Czech Republic went into operation. The main hub in Humpolec as well as eight other depots build the new GLS network in the Czech Republic.

The GLS European network now covers 36 states.