CORRECTION – February 9, 2015 – This story originally contained two errors. CN’s fourth-quarter 2014 net income was $844 million, compared with net income of C$635 million for the same quarter of 2013. CN’s full year earnings for 2014 were C$3.167 billion, compared with C$2.612 billion in 2013. The railway’s 2014 labour and fringe benefits cost was C$2.319 billion, compared with C$2.182 billion in 2013. CN’s fourth quarter labour and fringe benefits expense was C$592 million, compared with C$594 million for the final quarter of 2013. The Western Producer apologizes for the error.
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Canada’s largest railway company posted a 17 percent year-over-year increase in fourth quarter revenues this week and increased its quarterly dividend to shareholders by $0.06 per share to $0.31.
Canadian National Railway on Jan. 27 reported fourth quarter earnings of $844 million during the three months ending Dec. 31, 2014, up from $635 million a year earlier.
Full year net income was $3.17 billion, up from $2.61 billion in 2013.
The strong fourth quarter boosted CN’s full-year 2014 revenues to more than $12.1 billion, up 15 percent from approximately $10.6 billion in 2013.
Going forward, the company said it expects a 3.4 percent increase in carloads in 2015, prices above inflation and improved margins, due partly to lower fuel costs during the first quarter of 2015.
CN has also set side $2.6 billion in 2015 for capital spending, including $1.3 billion on track improvements and rail network expansion and approximately $500 million on equipment, including 90 new locomotives.
In a conference call with investors, CN president and chief executive officer Claude Mongeau said the company hauled record amounts of prairie grain last year, despite extreme winter weather that affected grain movement throughout the first quarter of 2014.
Despite a record cold winter and a record large harvest in the fall of 2013, Canada finished the 2013-14 crop year with a near-normal grain carryout, he said.
Mongeau suggested that politicians and members of a federal panel reviewing the Canada Transportation Act, view CN’s performance favourably and consider the record tonnages moved when formulating new rail policy.
Mongeau said CN hauled 13 percent more grain in 2014 than in any other calendar year previously.
Year-to-date in 2015, it is 16 percent ahead of last year’s pace, he added.
Mongeau made his comments just a day after a coalition of western Canadian grain and oilseed shippers issued a report criticizing rail performance and suggesting that Canada’s major railway companies are falling to meet shippers’ demands for grain cars.
The Ag Transport Coalition said Jan. 26 that the country’s two major railways — CN and Canadian Pacific Railway — are approximately 12,000 cars short of meeting shipper demand so far in the 2014-15 crop year, which began Aug. 1 of last year.
Contact brian.cross@producer.com
