CSX from all reports is getting a New CEO. Guess who they are getting E Hunter Harrison. All I have to say and this is from someone in a compieting transporation business is I wish those employees well. We all know his methods from looking at both CN and now CP I just hope CSX can weather the storm so to speak that is him. NS better be ready to pick up a bunch of traffic from customers he loses.
EHH comes across as railroading’s version of “Chainsaw Al” Dunlap, a so-called turnaround artist who saved failing companies for the shareholders by slicing and dicing them into profitability. He apparently had no real skills in actually operating any profitable remnants.
Sounds exciting if that happens. Now, with business friendly Trump in the White House and his protege Keith Creel running CP, perhaps they will revisit a potential merger of the two. The dynamics have certainly changed from two years ago. I doubt Harrison would be interested in simply improving the Railroad’s performance… he’s been there and done that several times, and he’s 72 years old. Moreover, he’s given up alot at CP… a million dollar a year consulting fee plus plus plus… Likely he has bigger plans, and his interest in mergers is well known. The next couple of years are going to be interesting…
The Canadian Government could potentially Nix that…It’ll be interesting to see what happens.
CSX thought John Snow was a great executive, too.
It’s time to add CSX to my prayer list.
Nobody that I know thought John Snow was great - as the value of the company and it’s shares shrank under his command - then he got a $69M ‘golden parachute’ to become Treasurer of the United States under Bush. Michael Ward has fought long and hard to have the company recover from Snow’s years.
Harrison on the way, prayer answered.
BaltACD: I stand corrected, but the Board must have thought him great, at one time anyway.
Ulrich: that’s pretty funny, actually. [:D]
But how can we be sure EHH is the answer to prayer? After all, “By their works ye shall know them,” and, from “Two” Corinithians, “And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.”
Things aren’t always as they seem.
Sounds like it has the makings of a hostile takeover with Pershing Square as the leader and Harrison in a supporting role. Shades of “The Children’s Fund”?
Depends on what he prayed for.
Remember the joke that ends “Well, Cheryl had a little sin in her life…”?
The guy who makes EHH newsworthy again
Getty Images caption: “Paul C. Hilal, partner with Pershing Square Capital Management LP, listens during a Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. town hall meeting in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, on Monday, Feb. 6, 2012. Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd.'s support for Chief Executive Officer Fred Green doesn’t make sense because the company’s performance trails all of its North American peers, the railroad’s largest investor said.”
Excerpt from The Globe and Mail, Jan. 19
CSX Corp. jumped the most on record after news that outgoing Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. Chief Executive Officer Hunter Harrison is teaming up with an activist investor to shake up the least efficient U.S. railroad.
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Read somewhere today that Hilal is only capitalized to $1B for this ‘fight’; doesn’t sound like much of a war chest.
Can anybody confirm that Harrison and Creel are related? For the past 5 years I have heard Creel is his son-in-law… is this true? I hear he is from some, and others say no. Whats the answer?
Is it possible that today’s CSX will soon be playing the role of the Erie Railroad in that famous late 19th century drama for control of that company by some very rapacious people?
Two-bit greenmailers.
This whole set of scenarios sounds a bit like scenes from an old ‘Snidley Whiplash’ melodrama…Has anyone got any ‘solid info’ ?
[ For those of us who do not remember who, and what Snidley Whiplash was: “… his personality is a one-dimensional, over-the-top, openly evil villain of limited intelligence who comes up with elaborate schemes for the hero to foil — kidnapping a helpless female and tying her up to either a railroad track or a Conveyor Belt-O-Doom, in an attempt to coerce her into “marrying” him or relinquishing the deed to her property, is the old standard. He can usually be expected to go to great lengths to cheat at things he could easily win legitimately…” Snidley was often the villan in the “Dudley Do-Right” cartoons, and those involving “The Perils of Pauline” ] [2c]
Just sort of seems to fit the Pershing Square group types, and EEH [:-^]
Harrison will be carried away on a stretcher grasping his heart after one meeting with CSX Executives I can guarantee it.
“We thought we would do better this quarter as projected but ran into unexpected headwinds, blah, blah, blah”…he-he-he. Oh the past memories of me being a patient investor in that company…
EHH has ditched claim to C$118M, so he’s not in this for the money. How about CSX gives him the Service Design job. Might be a AVP level job at CSX (just a director level job at NS). It’s where he staked his claim.
If he’s after validation, he’d take it.
But, if it’s just an ego trip…
When you are 72 - everything other than a Wal-Mart greeter is a ego trip.