BONN, Germany (Reuters) - Deutsche Post DHL Group <DPWGn.DE> reported a sharp fall in operating profit on Tuesday, hurt by costs to restructure its troubled post and parcel division.
The German postal and logistics group is grappling with spiralling transport and staff costs at its Post - eCommerce - Parcel (PeP) division, and the group issued a profit warning for 2018 in June and started a restructuring programme.
It spent 392 million euros (342 million pounds) in the third quarter on restructuring measures at the PeP division which include splitting its post and parcel delivery division into a German and an international unit.
Those costs weighed on group earnings before interest and tax, which fell 54.9 percent to 376 million euros in the three months through September.
The profit decline was less steep than analysts had expected and beat the Reuters poll consensus for 339 million euros
Sales rose 1.4 percent to 14.85 billion euros, also beating the average analyst forecast for quarterly sales of 14.77 billion.
Deutsche Post affirmed its reduced targets for the year for 2018 group profit of about 3.2 billion euros and said it was on course for more than 5 billion in 2020.
(Reporting by Matthias Inverardi; Writing by Caroline Copley; Editing by Riham Alkousaa and Maria Sheahan)
