Hopefully this is one that is not behind the paywall. I can see it as a subscriber, but not all articles are behind the paywall.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/private-equity-firms-discuss-bid-for-kansas-city-southern-11596223106?mod=mh
I wonder if this will spur interest from other parties.
kgbw49Hopefully this is one that is not behind the paywall. I can see it as a subscriber, but not all articles are behind the paywall. https://www.wsj.com/articles/private-equity-firms-discuss-bid-for-kansas-city-southern-11596223106?mod=mh I wonder if this will spur interest from other parties.
When the words 'Private Equity' are mentioned VULTURE springs to mind; of course vultures do wait until its food source is dead bfore picking at the corpse. Private Equity firms want to eat all the cash and capital off their victim before leaving the victim to the real business vultures.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
BaltACDWhen the words 'Private Equity' are mentioned VULTURE springs to mind
I think the word you want instead of vulture is hyena. Hyenas won't wait, they'll attack in a pack if they see an opportunity. Ugly critters too.
After they're done, the vultures show up.
Final approval for any takeover is up to the STB since all railroad fall under their juristiction.
Flintlock76 BaltACD When the words 'Private Equity' are mentioned VULTURE springs to mind I think the word you want instead of vulture is hyena. Hyenas won't wait, they'll attack in a pack if they see an opportunity. Ugly critters too. After they're done, the vultures show up.
BaltACD When the words 'Private Equity' are mentioned VULTURE springs to mind
You can see the vultures circling in the sky waiting their opportunity.
With the big push to near-source businesses and the implementation of the new USMCA trade agreement, I had been thinking Berkshire Hathaway with their pile of cash that they have been sitting on could have been a potential buyer. But COVID-19 has certainly changed the equation for a lot of economic activity.
I do seem to recall that when the new merger rules were written after BNSF and CN had proposed their merger back near the turn of the century, those rules were to apply to transcontinental mergers and KCS was left under the former rules which were less stringent. The former rules generally required approval of the combination unless there was something egregiously anti-competitive, if I recall correctly.
Perhaps that "carve-out" for KCS has changed since then.
The thought was that with BNSF intermodal reach into Ohio and to Atlanta, delivering consumer goods to the roughly 2/3 of the population that lives in the eastern half of the country, and the ability to transport grain and petroleum products into Mexico, it would have been a valuable add-on to the BNSF system.
I think Berkshire Hathaway would have been the only entity in control of a railroad that could have pulled that off, in terms of combining with an existing railroad.
BaltACD Flintlock76 BaltACD When the words 'Private Equity' are mentioned VULTURE springs to mind I think the word you want instead of vulture is hyena. Hyenas won't wait, they'll attack in a pack if they see an opportunity. Ugly critters too. After they're done, the vultures show up. You can see the vultures circling in the sky waiting their opportunity.
Isn't Berkshire Hathaway considered a private equity firm?
Not all private equity firms work the same. The company I work for was bought by a private equity firm about 6 years ago (we we're publicly traded at the time). Very little changed as a result. Pay raises continued, capital investment continued at the same rate. After about three years of growing the business, they sold us to a publicly traded company for a healthy profit. Now things are actually a bit worse, as the pressures of hitting quarterly finance targets that Wall Street demands causes management to suspend raises, limit expenses, etc.
No doubt some PE firms have earned the vulture capital moniker, but some of them can actually help things by being able to play a long game without having their stock price pummeled because of one bad quarter.
The two firms involved in the proposal have a reputation for long-term investment rather than a quick profit.
BH would have a problem buying KCS. When they bought BNSF they had a snag with multiple railroad ownership. With their holdings in many companies two had short line ownership that was overlooked BH had to scramble to unload the short lines or the BNSF deal would have been denied
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