Transportation
How a Railroad Mega-Merger Years in the Making Came Together
On Tuesday, Norfolk Southern agreed to sell itself to Union Pacific in a $72 billion cash-and-stock transaction:
Photographer: Jim Vondruska/BloombergNorfolk Southern Corp.’s new CEO had barely been in the job six months when he got on the phone with Jim Vena, his counterpart at Union Pacific Corp.
Mark George’s tenure was supposed to mark the start of a turnaround at the railroad company, which had endured a tumultuous 18-month period marked by a toxic train derailment, a drawn-out battle with an activist investor and the ouster of his predecessor after a workplace relationship.