P.M. Executive Briefing - Dec. 13
This Afternoon's Headlines:
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DHL Plans Offering, Aiming to Cash in on Couriers' Popularity With Investors
The express-mail and parcel carrier DHL Corp. intends an IPO in the next three years, and it is able to do so since top shareholder Japan Airlines decided it will sell a 20% stake in DHL. DHL's IPO will include that 20% in addition to 3% it bought from another Japanese company in 1999, and it will probably take place in the next year and a half.It is tough to say how much the IPO would fetch, but it could be up to $2.5 billion if it is anything like United Parcel Service's IPO. DHL should make out well since investors believe couriers will gain from e-commerce. Around the world, 39% of the country-to-country express market goes to DHL, compared to FedEx's 20% and UPS' 15%. Wall Street Journal (12/13/99) P. B20; Carreyrou, John
Sale of Sea-Land Service to Maersk is Completed
The sale of Sea-Land Service from CSX Corp. to the A.P. Moller Group unit Maersk has been completed at a roughly $800 million value. Containers, ships and certain terminals have been sold to Maersk. CSX will now make 80% of revenue and earnings from rail business, while keeping the CSX Lines and CSX World Terminals operations from Sea-Land.Ryder System Inc.
Ryder System anticipates taking a charge between $25.2 million and $28.2 million in the fourth quarter. The charge, which would be between 42 cents and 47 cents per share, is for the restructuring program the company publicized last month, including launching a finance subsidiary. Wall Street Journal (12/13/99) P. A23It May Be E-Z, But Not Cheap
The Delaware River Port Authority will start E-ZPass toll collection on the Benjamin Franklin, Betsy Ross, Commodore Barry, and Walt Whitman bridges early Saturday morning, the same day commercial truck and bus tolls will go up. On Jan. 2, car tolls will go up as well, and the two-state port authority is ending its program using monthly stickers.Many commuters are upset about the toll hikes, but they mostly called the port authority or wrote to newspapers; few attended public hearings in the approval process.
The E-ZPass system has stretched from the New York Thruway, where it began, to New York City-area bridges and tunnels, bridges across the Hudson River, the Atlantic City Expressway, and roadways in Delaware and Massachusetts.
People with the tags can use them throughout the system, which is to extend in the next year to the turnpikes in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, Baltimore-area bridges and tunnels, the New York-Canada Peace Bridge, and roadways in West Virginia. It is also now in part of the Garden State Parkway, and will be on the complete parkway by July and on the Delaware Memorial Bridge in the next year and a half. Philadelphia Inquirer (12/12/99) P. E1; Gambardello, Joseph A.
Automating Toll Booth Near Dixon Has Been a Headache for Illinois Officials
Since officials in Illinois suddenly replaced the toll booth at the exit onto State Route 26 from Interstate 88 with automatic baskets, they have met with criticism. Local leaders are afraid drivers will not stop in Dixon due to the need for exact change, and some truckers are taking different roads so they do not need to carry so many quarters.Mike Benge, transportation manager at Raynor Garage Doors in Dixon, said the company has ended up with an "accounting nightmare" from truckers spending some $10 worth of quarters daily going to and from Chicago but having no receipts.
A big part of the criticism is that the toll collectors are gone, no longer able to help drivers with directions and guide them in the area. Neal MacDonald of the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority said it did not expect the criticism.
Although there is not much traffic in the rural area, the exit ramps have a strange configuration, with exits from the westbound and eastbound I-88 joining together to hit the single tollbooth. The tollway authority changed to baskets because of complaints from the toll collectors' union and the inability to add the electronic I-Pass system. St. Louis Post-Dispatch (12/12/99) ; Webb, James
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