It’s mainly procedural: On Oct. 29, Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern jointly filed a railroad control application with the Surface Transportation Board transaction to create Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC), “the only single-line railroad linking the United States, Mexico and Canada.”
Kansas City Southern (KCS) on Oct. 19 was the first Class I to report third-quarter 2021 earnings. Revenue for the potentially merger-bound railroad—back with original suitor Canadian Pacific (CP)—came in at $744.0 million, growing 13% from the prior-year period ($659.6 million), but volumes fell.
“I am elated for our CP family,” an understandably energized Canadian Pacific President and CEO Keith Creel told Railway Age Editor-in-Chief William C. Vantuono the day after a joint call with analysts with his
For those of you who don’t read or speak Latin (including the author), terminabitur translates to “terminated” or “discontinued.” Resumo translates to “resumed” or “picked up where we left off.” E duobus,
Surprise, surprise: On Sept. 4, 2021, four days after the Surface Transportation Board slammed the door shut on the CN-Kansas City Southern voting trust, effectively killing the proposed merger of the two Class I’s, the KCS Board of Directors has unanimously determined, after consultation with outside legal and financial advisors, that the “unsolicited proposal” received from Canadian Pacific on Aug. 31, 2021 to acquire KCS in a cash and stock transaction valued by CP at $300 per KCS share “could reasonably be expected to lead to a ‘Company Superior Proposal’ as defined in KCS’s merger agreement with CN.”
Yet another potentially game-changing moment for Kansas City Southern in the railroad version of the Super Bowl—the merger tug-of-war between rival Canadian teams, taking place on the Surface Transportation Board playing field before head official Marty Oberman, this one not entirely unexpected: The KCS board has called a timeout (postponed) the Aug. 19 shareholder vote on accepting or rejecting CN’s power-play* offer until the STB rules on the CN/KCS voting trust. Will Canadian Pacific pull off a hat trick?*
One month after Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern announced their intent to merge into CPKC (Canadian Pacific Kansas City), CN made a counter-offer it said is a “superior proposal” that “will
Just when we thought Railway Age would get a brief break from publishing letters about mergers, here’s another one, from the North Dakota Grain Dealers Association (NDGDA) to the Surface Transportation Board re-iterating its support of the Canadian Pacific-Kansas City Southern combination.
Perhaps not so surprisingly, almost exactly one month to the day after Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern announced their intent to merge into CPKC (Canadian Pacific Kansas City), CN made a counter-offer it said is a “superior proposal” that “will result in a safer, faster, cleaner and stronger railway.” CN’s proposal of $325 per KCS share “represents a 21% premium over the implied value of the CP transaction and values KCS at an enterprise value of $33.7 billion.”
After a thorough review of my mergers and acquisitions career work, I have reached the conclusion that the Canadian Pacific-Kansas City Southern (“CPKC”) combination has several less-than-optimal locations where overall system performance affecting three nations—the U.S., Mexico and Canada—could be addressed and improved during Surface Transportation Board review.
