Norfolk Southern Corporation (NSC)'s Merger Could Suffer From CSX CEO's Belief, Says Jim Cramer

We recently published 11 Fresh Stocks On Jim Cramer’s Radar. Norfolk Southern Corporation (NASDAQ:NSC) is one of the stocks Jim Cramer recently discussed.

Norfolk Southern Corporation (NASDAQ:NSC)’s shares have been in the news lately due to its pending merger with railroad giant Union Pacific. Cramer’s co-host David Faber was the first to break the news of an impending merger in the railroad industry, but this news pushed Norfolk Southern Corporation (NASDAQ:NSC)’s shares down by 3% after it was officially confirmed. Overall, however, the shares have gained 19% which is in stark contrast to Union Pacific’s 2.7% drop. Cramer discussed a factor that might harm Norfolk Southern Corporation (NASDAQ:NSC)’s merger:

“As Joe Hinrichs [CSX CEO] said to me last night on CSX, for the first time railroads are looking to work together. There is a up to a five day delay every time you get to Chicago because they don’t really, I mean we never really completed one. He’s saying you don’t need to merge, in order to make things more efficient. That would hurt the Norfolk Southern, Union Pacific merger.”

Previously, the CNBC TV host discussed Norfolk Southern Corporation (NASDAQ:NSC)’s merger with Union Pacific:

“Well what’s incredible if you look at the actual rails, it makes so much sense. There’s so little overlap. You wanted East-West. It’s [inaudible] be great thing. There is tremendous congestion, where the two in the Midwest, in Chicago area, it’s so, I don’t see a lot of the overlap that would make you not like it. I think that, if you were a regulator in the previous regime, you might say, you know what, these two will never compete if we let them merge. So we can’t let them merge because now they won’t go against each other. But the fact is, they were never going to go against each other. That’s not, the rails, stop doing that years ago.

“This is a deal where you just would never have seen it. . .I think that they have a feeling that this one’s gonna go. Don’t matter what [inaudible] get it. And, I would argue that if you think there’s going to be big reindustrialization, Carl, you do want it. It makes sense to have this type of seamless rhythm. The rails are, look I think we all wish that we didn’t, that we had more rails in the country, they’re much cleaner, 400 miles to the diesel gallon. You could argue that other countries have them in a much more you, in a superb way, and we’re a little disjointed, This makes a lot of sense.”

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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.