Harrison takes his plan to CSX

Article Excerpt

CSX CORP. $49 (New York symbol CSX; Manufacturing Sector; Shares outstanding: 893.7 million; Market cap: $43.4 billion; Takeover Target Rating: Medium; Dividend yield: 1.6%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.csx.com) is North America’s third-largest publicly traded railway company by market cap, after Union Pacific (No. 1) and CN Rail (No. 2). It has 34,000 kilometers of tracks in 23 eastern U.S. states as well as in Ontario and Quebec. Earlier this year, activist investment firm Mantle Ridge LP succeeded in getting Hunter Harrison appointed the new CEO for CSX. Mantle Ridge wants the industry veteran to slash the company’s costs and improve efficiency, as he did at when head of CN Rail and then CP Rail. In the quarter ended September 30, 2017, CSX’s operating ratio rose to 68.0% from 69.0% a year earlier. (Operating ratio is calculated by dividing regular operating costs by revenue. The lower, the better.) CSX still has a long way to go to match the efficiency of Mr. Harrison’s last…