How accurate are these financials? Am I reading them right?

[BostonUrbEx]

PAR: https://www.google.com/finance?q=pan+am ... &fstype=ii" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

PWRR: https://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ ... qwHb-IH4Cw" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Based on this, PAR is brining in about $500mil of revenue every quarter. Meanwhile, P&W is making somewhere around just $8mil a quarter.

At least one has to be wrong, I'd imagine. Maybe both. I'm not sure where this data comes from or if I'm even interpreting it correctly.

Also, if PAR is correct, wouldn't that place them as a Class I?

[BandA]

PanAm is a private company. How does Dunn & Bradstreet or Google Financial get this information?

[F-line to Dudley via Park]

Yeah...that's suspect. PAR is a closed-books shop because all its shareholders are private. And a very, very closed-books shop historically given how tight-lipped MellonFink are about what their P&L actually is under the hood or the eleventeen ways it's compartmentalized.

You'd probably have to befriend a lackey of Norfolk Southern's CFO to be able to get a scoop on that kind of info. The only accurate independent confirmation you'll ever get of PAR's internal cash flow comes from the select few totally-outside principals who've got a direct hand in said cash flow.

[Station Aficionado]

If PAR sells any type of bond of commercial paper (I don't know if they have), a certain amount of info has to be disclosed in the offering materials. The amount of info would be much more limited than what a publicly traded company would have to disclose. That could be a source for financial information on PAR. (For many years before UPS went public, the only info on its financials was from its bond offerings.)

[MEC407]

P&W is publicly traded, so it shouldn't be difficult to verify their numbers.

[Ridgefielder]

If PAR sells any type of bond of commercial paper (I don't know if they have), a certain amount of info has to be disclosed in the offering materials. The amount of info would be much more limited than what a publicly traded company would have to disclose. That could be a source for financial information on PAR. (For many years before UPS went public, the only info on its financials was from its bond offerings.)

I can't find any bonds outstanding for PAR or it's three subs-- MEC, BM, ST. It's possible you could find the info buried in NS's corporate filings, though, since NSC would have to disclose the finances of the Pan Am Southern joint venture.

[kilroy]

The NS financials would only have info on the NS-PAR JV operations only and have nothing on Pan Am itself.

Even if you found outstanding debt for PAR, if it is privately placed, there would not be any financial info released to the public. The bond holders would get it and would be obligated to keep the information confidential.

Given Mellon's MO, I would think he would opt for privately placed debt.

[Station Aficionado]

If PAR sells any type of bond of commercial paper (I don't know if they have), a certain amount of info has to be disclosed in the offering materials. The amount of info would be much more limited than what a publicly traded company would have to disclose. That could be a source for financial information on PAR. (For many years before UPS went public, the only info on its financials was from its bond offerings.)

I can't find any bonds outstanding for PAR or it's three subs-- MEC, BM, ST. It's possible you could find the info buried in NS's corporate filings, though, since NSC would have to disclose the finances of the Pan Am Southern joint venture.

Well, that makes the source of the info a real head-scratcher.

[edbear]

When the B & M left the bankruptcy courts in 1983, it had absolutely no debt other than it current bills. I worked for the B & M back then. All of Maine Central's common stock was owned by Guilford which bought it from Ashland Oil, which made an offer the previous MEC stockholders could not resist (to sell their stock to Ashland). Ashland tired of the rairoad quickly and sold out to Guilford in short order, late 70s, early 80s. I checked my 1957 Moody's and MEC had several debt issues due 1977-1980, not overwhelming and I'm sure they were addressed, but I don't have any details. However, one annoyance that the Guilford management had was Maine Central's preferred stock. Most of it had been bought up by MEC over the years, but some shares were in the hands of people unaffiliated with Guilford, and they enjoyed a $6 annual dividend on each share. Because a large enough percentage of the preferred was in the hands of outsiders, GTI had to comply with certain public reporting requirements which a privately held company would not have to. GTI at the time was intent on buying up the rest of the MEC preferred stock.

[NHV 669]

Yet the bio says "they run in Canada" and "they were once part of an airline"

:facepalm

[CN9634]

Surprisingly however, the figures are believable for an outfit such as Pan Ams... but the source is still at question. A total asset value of $1.5B is believable, as well as some of the revenue, EBITDA, EBIT, & net figures. I have an MBA but I did not concentrate in finance, however you could do some interesting ratio analysis and valuation models to come up with an idea of how much PAR could potentially sell for, as well as how they are doing (declining net isn't always an indicator of performance)

[BostonUrbEx]

Surprisingly however, the figures are believable for an outfit such as Pan Ams...

Is it really? I'm looking at this and all I see is PAR making P&W look like a model train set. To be honest, the reason I was looking for this information was because I was wondering what the feasibility was of a PAR + P&W merger. The resulting railroad would have a good hold on an entire region, and they could trim out some redundant lines in Connecticut, plus the Gardner branch, adding some savings into the mix without losing customers or the ability to be a gateway for New England. When I see this, though, the P&W seems really insignificant when considering it's system map. I guess that does however explain not only why it hasn't happened yet, but why I've never heard of such a rumor or heard of the idea being kicked around.

[Cowford]

To MEC's point, PW is a publicly traded company (NASDAQ ticker PWX). If you go to their website, you can pull up on the quarterly and annual public filings.

[frrc]

P&W is a better managed railroad...

[Engineer Spike]

I've never tried, but can someone get Pan Am's tax returns, as well as B&M, MEC, ST, Northpoint, Pan Am Airways, Boston Maine Airways, .........
One other thing might be AAR might have figures on how many cars were interchanged.