Bill Ackman Has a New Enemy: The United States Army

You can’t make this shit up. What a year this is turning out to be for William Albert Ackman. It appears his scheme to merge Canadian Pacific with Norfolk Southern potentially compromises national security. As such, the United States Army is voicing its disapproval to the deal.

“We are troubled by the possibility that Mr. Harrison could become a senior executive at Norfolk Southern in advance of the board ruling in favor of common control/merger between Canadian Pacific and Norfolk Southern,” according to a letter from the Army. “If Mr. Harrison is a senior executive at NSR he may be placed in a position where he must make business decisions with potentially competing interests.”

The Surface Transportation Board will accept comments on the plan until Friday and Canadian Pacific will have until April 13 to reply to those.

“We look forward to providing a fulsome response at that time,” said Martin Cej, a spokesman for the Canadian railroad. Ackman, whose Pershing Square Capital Management is the second-largest shareholder of Canadian Pacific, with a 9.1 percent stake, has advocated for the merger during conference calls with analysts and investors.

There are 36,000 miles of rail lines that are designated to move defense cargo throughout the U.S. “in peace and war,” said the letter, signed by David Dorfman, a senior civil engineer for the Railroads for National Defense Program. The Surface Transportation Board has given interested parties until Friday to submit commentary.

“It is too early to determine whether either a CPRL+NSR merger itself, or a downstream merger involving other major railroads, would degrade national defense,” the letter said. “However, the potential certainly exists for either the CPRL+NSR merger or a downstream merger to adversely affect national defense.”

Never trust loyalist Candian scum.