What is the Canadian National Railway?
The company is Canada’s largest railway in terms of both revenue & physical size of its railway network. It has 20,400 route miles (32,831 km) of track going from Nova Scotia to British Columbia. Currently, CN has 22,600 employees. CN was government-owned from its founding in 1919 until being privatized in 1995.
What is the competitive advantage of CNR?
Railroad companies are a business model that is very hard for competitors to come in & compete against. Because you have to build up a whole system, a whole railroad network to compete. Competitors need huge capital expenditure to do that & most of them can’t. This makes the business model of CNR very safe.
How much money do they make?
In FY 2023 they have made $16.8 billion in revenue & from 2020 they have increased their revenue year after year. The net profit of the company has increased from $3.5 billion in 2020 to $5.6 billion in 2023. Over the past four years, the company was able to maintain an over $3.5 billion free cash flow & CN is a cash-rich company.
How much assets & equity do they have?
The total assets of the company is $52.6 billion & the shareholders’ equity is $20.1 billion. The debt to equity figure is 161%, which means the company owes 1.61 times of equity to its creditors as debts.
What is the price of the CNR stock?
The stock is currently trading at $174. The earnings of the company for the FY 2023 is $8.53 which gives the PE of 20. Last year the company paid $3.38 as dividends & the dividend yield was 1.95%. Over the past 26 years the company has paid consistent dividends to its shareholders & year after year they have increased the dividend payouts.
Who owns the company?
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation owns 8.61% of the company which is worth $9.5 billion. Tracy Robinson was appointed Chief Executive Officer of CN in 2022 & she runs the company now.
