Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. $78.20 – Toronto symbol CP

Article Excerpt

CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY LTD. $78.20, Toronto symbol CP, shot up to $91 in mid-July on takeover speculation, but it has now moved back down to where it was when the speculation began. This is due to the market downturn since then, plus rising doubt on the odds of a takeover. Potential bidder Brookfield Asset Management wanted to break CP into two pieces, railways and real estate. It felt this would let it generate enough extra value to pay a high price for the company and still come out with profits for itself. But CP says it has already considered this kind of breakup and restructuring, and concluded that it may not generate enough value to make it worthwhile. This could simply mean that CP management and Brookfield are using different assumptions in their analysis of the plan. The difference may also reflect a potential conflict of interest: CP managers may want to hang on to their jobs and Brookfield may want to…