KLM EXPANDS TALKS WITH BRITISH AND COMMONWEALTH

  KLM Royal Dutch Airways &lt;KLM.AS> said
  it agreed to take full control of a partially owned Dutch-based
  parcel delivery service and will offer a minority stake in it
  to British and Commonwealth Shipping Plc &lt;BCOM.L>
      KLM, seeking to strengthen its market position in the fast
  growing door-to-door delivery market, said it agreed with Dutch
  retailer Vendex International &lt;VENN.AS> to take over Vendex's
  50-pct in their jointly-owned courier, &lt;XP System VOF>.
      Ownership of XP will now be brought into the talks started
  by KLM last week with British and Commonwealth for a one-third
  stake in the latter's &lt;IML Air Services Group Ltd> courier.
      When announcing the negotiations with British and
  Commonwealth last week, KLM said buying a minority stake in IML
  could involve a convertible loan issue.
      A KLM spokeswoman said the Dutch flag carrier would now
  offer a minority stake in XP to British and Commonwealth in the
  negotiations on IML, but declined to elaborate on financial
  aspects of the talks.
      She said KLM would like the two courier services to
  cooperate in future and did not exclude a future merger between
  them to combine IML's strong world-wide network with XP's
  mainly European activities.
      XP System is based in the southern Dutch airport of
  Maastricht and has an annual turnover of 100 mln guilders.
      KLM, which is also negotiating with British and
  Commonwealth for a 15-pct stake in the latter's regional
  airline &lt;Air U.K. Ltd>, says door-to-door delivery courier
  services are seeing substantially faster growth than
  traditional cargo activities.
  

