Unofficially, it has been announced that MM&A has been sold to Fortress Investment Group. The announcement was made by one of the losing bidders. The official announcement is expected soon.
http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/railway-in-lac-megantic-crash-sold-in-closed-door-auction-1.1650040
Bruce
Is not Fortress the investment firm the brought Hunter to CP? Or were they the ones that tried to take over CSX?
Fortress previously owned FEC and RailAmerica before selling the RA lines to Genesee & Wyoming.
It was Pershing Square Management under William Ackman.
Bruce
The Childrens Fund, a hedge fund from England was the organization that waged the proxy fight for CSX. The 2008 worldwide recession and financial collapse basically collapsed the Childrens Fund.
Fortress still invovled with FEC?
I hadn’t checked TRAINS Newswire yesterday or I would have realized this story was already covered there. According to the comments following the story, Fortress is still running FEC and quite successfully apparently.
Bruce
You have just turned my negative view of the transaction into a positive one. They certainly have not starved lFEC for capital investment. I hope and expect they will do well with MM&A.
The sad part is that the previous management had only $25 mil in insurance and even the proceeds of the sale raise that to less than $40 mil. Not much compensation for a shoe string operation destroying a town and killing 47 people out of negligence.
You’re right. Any rail line operated by anyone other than a class one should be closed abandoned and torn out. The Megantic wreck would have destroyed ANY shortline.
MM&A was well on its way to turning things around when Lac Megantic happened. That just goes to show that most of us in transportation are really only one serious accident away from bankruptcy and oblivion.