UPS plans ecommerce acquisitions

US courier, United Parcel Service (UPS), is planning a series of ecommerce acquisitions.

A UPS spokesman would not disclose details of which companies were under scrutiny, but said expansion in three areas was likely - international, logistics management and ecommerce.

UPS's mantra has long been "enabling global commerce." But the spokesman said this now included everything from delivery to online document exchange to managing the supply chains of large companies. "We could even move from managing the flow of goods to managing the flow of money," he told Silicon.com.

The privately-held company is to float 10 per cent of its stock to make the purchases. The spokesman said: "Ecommerce and Web companies like to deal in shares, not cash, so we need to float some of our stock to create an acquisition currency."

The stock, which will represent just 1 per cent of the overall voting rights, will be freed up by the end of the year.