Railroad bidding war for Kansas City Southern is reignited

Canadian Pacific is upping its offer for Kansas City Southern to approximately $31 billion, potentially reigniting a bidding war with rival railroad Canadian National.

Kansas City Southern is the smallest of the remaining major U.S. railroads, but it also controls critical cross-border routes with Mexico.

Its size has long piqued the interest of other railroads as any bid could be the most likely to be approved by U.S. regulators long wary of signing off on railroad mergers out of antitrust concerns.

But its cross-border rails give Kansas City a high premium in the eyes of bigger railroads hungry to expand, particularly now as the U.S. economy emerges from a pandemic-induced recession.