Updated: Genesee & Wyoming will go private following $8.4B deal
Written by RT&S Staff
A Genesee & Wyoming short-liner has upgraded its entire line to handle 286,000-lb railcar loadings.
U.S. freight railroad owner Genesee & Wyoming now has Canadian and Singaporian ties.
Canada’s Brookfield Asset Management and wealth fund GIC out of Singapore agreed to buy Genesee & Wyoming for approximately $6.4 billion in cash. The deal, expected to close by the end of 2019 or early 2020, follows a $13 billion purchase made by Brookfield for Johnson Controls International’s power solutions business last year. Including debt, the deal is worth about $8.4 billion. The deal will make Genesee & Wyoming a privately held company.
Genesee & Wyoming owns 120 short-line railroads, mostly in North America. The company also has operations in Europe and Australia.
“For our customers, employees, and Class 1 partners, the long-term investment horizon of Brookfield Infrastructure and GIC as seasoned infrastructure investors is perfectly aligned with the long lives of Genesee & Wyoming railroad assets, which are integral to the local economies that we serve in North America,” Genesee & Wyoming Chairman and CEO Jack Hellmann said in a statement. “They are also fully supportive of our business plan, which will continue to be focused on safety, customer service, and growing our footprint to provide more opportunity for our people.”
“ASLRRA is pleased that G&W has found an owner with a long-term view on infrastructure and investing. G&W’s 100+ short line railroads in the U.S. provide hundreds of jobs in the communities they are located in, and service to thousands of shippers throughout small town and rural America, and we see that commitment only increasing. As with all short lines throughout the country, G&W will work every day to invest in infrastructure so that these small business railroads can continue to provide safe, efficient, and environmentally friendly service, keeping communities connected to the larger freight rail network and the U.S. and world economies,” said Chuck Baker, president of American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association (ASLRRA). “We do not anticipate any change to G&W’s involvement in our Association as a result of the change in ownership from public markets to private long-term infrastructure investors.”
We are following this story as more details come to the surface.
