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Daily Record Financial News &

Tuesday, March 28, 2017

Vol. 104, No.096 • One Section

35¢

www.jaxdailyrecord.com

CSX’s road to efficiency: more cuts

Former CSX executive predicts 5,000 layoffs, possible merger

Special to the Daily Record

By Karen Brune Mathis Managing Editor

Asok Chaudhuri worked at CSX for 26 years.

Asok Chaudhuri is a 26-year veteran of CSX Corp. and a predecessor company. By the time he left in 2005, he had been senior vice president of corporate development with CSX Corp. and CSX World Terminals. In more than two decades of rising in the executive ranks, he saw firsthand the company’s strategy — formulated and implemented; development; performance improvement; and acquisitions

and sales of business units. He expects more change — although different — from new CSX CEO Hunter Harrison over the next four years, assuming shareholders approve his contract in the next month or so. Having analyzed CSX and other railway companies, Chaudhuri predicts more job cuts at CSX, possibly thousands more throughout the system’s operating territories. That would be on top of the 800 management positions eliminated this month, including 500

in Jacksonville. CSX says on its website the company employs nearly 28,900 people. Chaudhuri wouldn’t be surprised either to see Harrison take a legacy leap to merge Jacksonville-based CSX with a Canadian railroad or a western U.S. railroad to create the first transcontinental system. Harrison has been on the job since March 6, although he warns he could walk if shareholders don’t agree to an $84 million CSX continued on Page 3

Investors New tanks to help fuel the future taking a look at Arlington By Karen Brune Mathis Managing Editor

Arlington

Public

continued on

Page 4

JaxPort, Crowley Maritime and Eagle LNG on Monday welcomed two, 260-ton cryogenic liquefied natural gas (LNG) storage tanks for a new LNG facility at Talleyrand Marine Terminal. The tanks will be used to fuel Crowley’s new Commitment Class ships, which are among the world’s first combination container - Roll-On/ Roll-Off (ConRo) ships powered by LNG, under construction for the Puerto Rico trade lane. Each tank holds enough LNG to cover an average family’s electricity demand for 1,000 years.

Special to the Daily Record

Jacksonville University President Tim Cost chummed the waters, as he called it, Monday as he met with area commercial brokers, builders and designers. He was churning up interest in Arlington, where JU has assembled 200 waterfront acres, and Cost has his eyes on more land in the area. “I yearn to see Arlington appropriately supported,” Cost said after telling members of the NAIOP Commercial Real Estate Development Association about JU’s investment in its campus. He hopes others see the potential return on investment in the aging commercial neighborhoods of one of the city’s first suburbs after completion of the Mathews Bridge in 1953. The bridge connected Downtown to what was essentially rural land ripe for executive and workforce housing, shopping centers and schools. As development began stretching east and south, Arlington’s population growth slowed. Now, Cost and others involved in revitalizing the area, which is just minutes from Downtown, want to see it restored to its community roots Cost and relevant to the community. “I do believe Arlington presents an unusually attractive opportunity right now,” Cost said. In an interview after his presentation, Cost pulled about a dozen business cards from his pocket from NAIOP members to illustrate the interest. He had handed out 20 to 30 of his own. About 110 members and guests attended the meeting at noon at the Hyatt Regency Jacksonville Riverfront. Some members said they hadn’t been in Arlington in decades but intended to check it out. One investor said he was going to take a look at what was available and maybe get into the market before prices rise.

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