Union Pacific nearing agreement to buy Norfolk Southern Bloomberg reports
Union Pacific had said on Thursday it is in advanced talks to acquire its rival, signaling that a deal to form a $200 billion coast-to-coast rail company could be close - and potentially trigger further consolidation among remaining freight rail giants.
Union Pacific declined to comment, while Norfolk Southern did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
The combination, which would be the largest-ever buyout in the sector, would create the first modern West-to-East single-line freight railroad in the United States, significantly affecting how goods from grains to chemicals to autos move across the country.
The fact that talks are advancing has surprised many in the rail industry and Wall Street as the U.S. freight rail system already functions as two regional duopolies by point of origin.
The talks show how thinking around antitrust issues has shifted under President Donald Trump's administration, with his executive orders aimed at removing anti-competitive barriers and opening the door to potential megamergers in the industry.
If completed, the deal would combine Union Pacific's dominant position in the western two-thirds of the U.S. with Norfolk Southern's 19,500-mile network spanning 22 eastern states.
Union Pacific is valued at approximately $138 billion, according to LSEG data. The company has been grappling with sluggish automotive volumes and volatile coal shipments as power producers shift to natural gas, which is shipped by pipeline.
Norfolk Southern, which is worth about $63 billion, is emerging from a turbulent period that included the ouster of its former CEO amid ethics investigations, a high-profile boardroom clash with activist investor Ancora, and a costly train derailment that set the company back about $1.4 billion.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
9 minutes ago
- The Independent
Trump to cut Ukraine ceasefire deadline during meeting with Starmer
Donald Trump met Sir Keir Starmer in Scotland and indicated he would bring forward the deadline for Russia to agree to a ceasefire with Ukraine. Trump expressed significant disappointment with Vladimir Putin's decision to continue air strikes against civilian targets, citing incidents in Kyiv. He previously set a 50-day deadline for a ceasefire, threatening tariffs, but now plans to reduce this timeframe. Discussions between Trump and Sir Keir are expected to cover ceasefire efforts in Ukraine, the situation in Gaza, and progress on the UK-US trade deal. The conflict in Ukraine persists, with recent Russian drone and missile strikes reported in the Sumy region and Russian claims of shooting down Ukrainian drones near St Petersburg.
The Independent
9 minutes ago
- The Independent
Britain has no business laughing at Trump's EU trade deal
In a world where Donald Trump's tariffs and trade wars make everyone a loser, are there any winners from his latest deal, sealed by a handshake with the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, in a ballroom at one of the president's Scottish golf courses, of all places? One very clear loser is von der Leyen herself. If body language is anything to go by, she looked like she'd been badly bullied by the Big Orange Man – and, truthfully, so she had. In her own clipped remarks, she admits that a reduction in tariffs to 15 per cent, while 'not to be underestimated', was 'the best we could get'. President Macron has declared the US-EU trade deal a 'dark day' for Europe – and you can understand why. A general tariff level of 15 per cent – better than the 20 per cent proposed by Trump on his infamous 'Liberation Day' in April, and even better than the 30 per cent he was threatening a couple of weeks ago – is still prohibitive. It is certainly way above the 2 to 3 per cent levels that most EU exporters used to face. A trade war has been avoided, but this looks like the kind of deal the Americans have forced on the likes of Vietnam or Indonesia. So it is something of a humiliation for the mighty European Union, a global trade superpower. The feeling in some parts of Europe must be that if von der Leyen had played hard ball like the Chinese, a more evenly balanced and more advantageous relationship could have been reached in the long run. We will never know the truth about that. For European pride and for many of its great industrial concerns, the deal is disappointing, and will be expensive – the Volkswagen group is just one to speak out. But for European consumers, it is surely good news. They will be able to enjoy cheaper imports from the United States; it is American customers who will have to pay more for their French wines and Italian sports cars. Could it be that the EU's trade deal – which Trump has, well, trumpeted as the 'biggest ever', and whose biggest 'win' is the removal of a threat to raise tariffs to 30 per cent later this week – is marginally worse than the one Starmer did with Trump in May? Britain's trade deal lowered tariffs of UK goods imported into the US to 10 per cent, and imposed a lesser, 25 per cent tariff on the UK steel industry, with room for further concessions, while the 50 per cent 'worldwide rate' will remain for the EU. For those now cheering this as a rare Brexit benefit, it is a hollow victory. For the concessions to Britain are so minor, they cannot hope to make up for the ground lost since Brexit – essentially, a GDP loss in excess of 5 per cent. And we're not out of the rough, by any stretch. As Keir Starmer meets the US president for further trade discussions at the Trump Turnberry golf course, he will be acutely conscious of his counterpart's unpredictability. Starmer has milked the modest concessions he managed to wangle, particularly on cars and food standards, but much remains vague and far from nailed-down. The greatest danger is the fuzzy UK commitment to improve the trading environment for the US pharma groups will eventually mean an enormous increase in the drugs bill for the National Health Service, which it can ill-afford. Trump also omitted virtually the whole of the service sector from his UK deal, where the British actually enjoy a surplus, which is great until he decides otherwise. There are no legally binding rules here. The world economy remains highly inter-dependent, and globalisation, while receding, cannot sensibly be ended, as even Elon Musk tries to argue. All barriers to trade harm the country that erects them both directly and, in their depressing effects on world growth, indirectly. Consumers are charged more, on a highly regressive basis, companies are forced to pay more for inputs, and be less cost-effective, and competition and dynamic structural change are deliberately impeded. Whatever the details of the individual deals counties are trying to strike with one another, tariffs make us all poorer in the long run.
Reuters
10 minutes ago
- Reuters
Trump says he is setting new 10 to 12-day deadline for Russia on war
TURNBERRY, Scotland, July 28 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday increased pressure on Russia to end its war in Ukraine, saying he was setting a new deadline of 10 to 12 days for Moscow to make progress on doing so. Trump, who is holding meetings in Scotland, said earlier on Monday that he was going to shorten a 50-day deadline he had set because of frustration with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
