The last major hurdle is gone
The European Commission granted unconditional antitrust clearance on August 17, 2026 for a consortium led by FedEx and private equity firm Advent International to take Polish parcel locker and last-mile delivery company InPost private in a deal valuing it at approximately 7.8 billion euros, or about 9.2 billion dollars.
The clearance removes the largest remaining obstacle to a deal first agreed in February 2026. Only one regulatory approval is now outstanding, and it comes from an unlikely place: Vietnam's Competition Commission, expected by September 8, 2026, even though InPost has no operations in Vietnam.
What is actually being bought
InPost operates roughly 61,000 automated parcel lockers and more than 33,000 additional pickup and drop-off points across nine European countries, and delivered 1.4 billion parcels in 2025. That network, not a warehouse or fleet business, is the asset at the center of the deal.
The consortium is offering 15.60 euros per share in an all-cash deal, a 50% premium over InPost's closing share price of 10.40 euros on January 2, 2026, the last trading day before talks became public. Once complete, ownership splits as follows: Advent International and FedEx each hold 37%, A&R Investments, the vehicle controlled by InPost founder and chief executive Rafal Brzoska, holds 16%, and Czech investment group PPF holds 10%.
InPost itself is not disappearing into FedEx's corporate structure. The company keeps its name, its branding, its Warsaw headquarters, and Brzoska as chief executive after the deal closes.
The deal has been moving through a long approval process since it was first agreed in February 2026. The formal offer period for shareholders opened at the end of May 2026, months before this antitrust clearance, meaning the consortium has effectively been waiting on regulators even as it began collecting shareholder commitments.
Why FedEx wants a European locker network
The strategic logic runs in both directions. FedEx contributes its global logistics network and technology capabilities to support InPost's continued expansion, while gaining direct access to InPost's last-mile business-to-consumer delivery infrastructure across Europe, a market where dense networks of self-service parcel lockers have become a standard consumer expectation in a way they have not in the United States.
For FedEx, buying into an established, already-dense locker network is a faster route to that kind of last-mile presence in Europe than building one from scratch, and it comes at a moment when parcel volumes tied to e-commerce keep pushing delivery companies toward unattended, self-service pickup points that cut the cost of failed home deliveries.
What is left before the deal closes
Beyond the pending Vietnamese regulatory sign-off, the consortium still needs enough InPost shareholders to accept the offer. The acceptance period runs until September 18, 2026, and the buyers are aiming for at least 95% acceptance, the threshold that would let them trigger a compulsory buyout of any shares still held out. As of the clearance, roughly 48% of outstanding shares were already committed through irrevocable undertakings from existing shareholders, including entities tied to PPF and Advent.
Assuming shareholders clear that bar and the Vietnamese approval comes through on schedule, the companies expect the deal to close in the second half of 2026.
The Vietnamese review is the odder detail in the timeline. InPost runs no lockers or delivery operations there, but merger control rules in some jurisdictions can be triggered by the size of the parties involved globally rather than by any local presence, which is why a deal about European parcel lockers still needs sign-off from a regulator on the other side of the world before it can close.
What it means in practice
For InPost customers across its nine markets, the day-to-day experience is unlikely to change immediately: the lockers keep the same branding, and the leadership stays in place. The more consequential shift is structural. Once the deal closes, one of Europe's largest independent last-mile delivery networks becomes part-owned by a global logistics carrier, which gives FedEx a direct stake in how European parcel delivery infrastructure develops rather than having to compete against it or rent space on it. For rival carriers and retailers who rely on InPost's locker network for deliveries, the deal is worth watching for whether pricing or access terms shift once a competitor holds more than a third of the company.
