I can’t get the whole story out of the Wall Street Journal site but Blackstone Group (along with other investors) has now launched a formal takeover bid of Kansas City Southern after their initial attempt back in late July was rebuffed. https://www.wsj.com/articles/blackstone-gip-make-takeover-bid-for-kansas-city-southern-11599073239?mod=hp_lista_pos1
I suppose it was only a matter of time…
Regardless; it’s bad news for KCS customers.
Why?
Amongst the terms used to describe Blackstone is “hedge fund.”
Hedge funds tend to be described as: "a limited partnership of investors that uses high risk methods, such as investing with borrowed money, in hopes of realizing large capital gains.
I thought they were landscapers… 
Didn’t they say the same about BNSF?
Berkshire Hathaway is not a short term - take the profits and run type investor. They are in the companies they invest in for the long term.
KCS under Pat Ottensmeyer has been a fairly customer focused railroad. When a hedge fund becomes involved, you can pretty safely assume their interest will be to rake as much cash as quickly as possible and the customers be damned.
As noted over on TRAINS Newswire; rail customers are already having renewed service issues with several Class 1’s whose focus is pleasing Wall Street rather than moving freight. Having Blackstone running the hen house will almost certainly not do anything to make life better for KCS customers.
On another site, members are already dividing up how KCS will sold off.
Jeff
Brookfield(G&W)-Brookhaven(Pioneer)-Blackstone(KCS)
STOP IT! (I’m getting connfuzzed[%-)] too many two syllable Bees)
Any former C&NW employee can tell you why.
I’ve worked with many CNW people who were around during that era. Most are now retired. I also would like to know why?
If it’s due to driving off customers and abandoning lines, the CNW did most of that before Blackstone arrived. It’s why the state of Iowa didn’t support CNW getting what they did from the RI liquidation in early 1980s.
Jeff
Thats where I heard the name before, weren’t they responsible for buying C&NW a while back???
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1989-06-07-8902070375-story.html
Reads like a major capital infusion into C&NW. I have to say that KCS needs the same capital infusion to complete the NAFTA railway dream, in my view. KCS still has tracks and routes to straighten out in South Texas in my view… I don’t think they are finished there yet.
Japonica wanted the CNW for the east/west main. It was rumored that they intended to sell or junk everything else. Japonica figured they could, in effect, hold the UP hostage for direct access from Council Bluffs to Chicago. (On the Wickipedia site for Japonica Partners, it says they were successful and steamlined the company and sold it to Blackstone. Not quite true.)
It was the initial hostile takeover that ultimately led to CNW being acquired by the UP. Before the Blackstone deal (which included UP) was finalized, the UP had taken out an option to buy the Iowa Interstate RR. Just incase Japonica won the CNW.
After Blackstone won, UP was given conditional trackage right on the east/west main. If CNW service deteroriated to an agreed upon level, UP could run their trains using their own crews. (Who probably would’ve been hired from the CNW ranks.) It never happened and UP gradually increased their ownership in the CNW.
Jeff
So, is this a step towards two North American major railroads?
Sure sound like the beginning stages of "Choose Your Partners’ for the next round of the Big American Railroad Square Dance ! [:-^]
[OR Here we go again?] [sigh]
The only reason Canada still has two railroads is the government there has an emotional attachment to the CP. Not sure how that is going to work out with your two railroad plan.
Feature the last two US Class 1’s will be CN & CP.
Pleasing Wall Street [pleasing investors in the capital markets] is what capitalism is. IMO, a vital infrastructure like rail transportation right of way should be owned by the people of the USA.
Someone sent me a link to a 1996 video about the 20th anniversary of Conrail. I told him if you played it backwards - you got PSR.