The disclosure could complicate the advisory vote on Harrison’s request to be reimbursed for $84 million in salary and benefits he forfeited by leaving early from the top job at Canadian Pacific.
But Harrison says he’s energized by transforming CSX.
“I’m having a ball and I’m running on so much adrenaline that no one can stop me,” Harrison told the Journal. “Don’t judge me by my medical record, judge me by my performance.”
CSX today reported dramatic improvements in key metrics — including a 52-percent leap in on-time arrivals — in the 10 weeks Harrison has been at the helm. Train velocity and terminal dwell also showed significant improvement as CSX rolls out Harrison’s precision scheduled railroad operating model.
Harrison carries a portable oxygen system.
“There are times when I get a little shortness of breath so I take oxygen and it helps. Sometimes I get a cough and the oxygen makes it go away,” Harrison told the Journal, adding that his doctors had given him clearance to work.
CSX Chief Financial Officer Frank Lonegro, speaking at an investor conference on Thursday morning, says Harrison is fully engaged in the business.
“I’ve gotten a dose of leadership from him while he had supplemental oxygen and I’ve had a dose of leadership from him when he hasn’t had supplemental oxygen,” Lonegro says. “And they were equally blunt and equally effective. So there’s no question about who is in charge and there’s no question about how engaged he is.”
Harrison has been pushing the CSX executive team.
“We’re really running to play catch up with him,” Lonegro says. “He’s a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week kind of guy.”
There has been no change in Harrison’s health, a person familiar with the matter tells Trains News Wire, and CSX was aware of his condition before he was named CEO in March.
Harrison’s health initially was a sticking point in negotiations between CSX and Mantle Ridge, Harrison’s activist investor partner. CSX wanted to have independent physicians review his medical records, but Harrison refused.
Absent questions about an executive’s performance, CSX says it does not comment on the health of its officers.
Harrison has said he will quit after the annual meeting if shareholders reject his reimbursement request.
A Mantle Ridge spokeswoman declined to comment on Harrison’s health.
Wall Street analysts shrugged off the report.
In his final two years at Canadian Pacific, Harrison frequently worked from home rather than at the railway’s Calgary headquarters.
“As a result we are not concerned about commentary in the WSJ article regarding his appearances at CSX headquarters only a few days/week,” UBS analyst Tom Wadewitz wrote in a note to clients.
“Ultimately we share Hunter’s view that he should be judged on performance, and in this context we are encouraged,” Deutsche Bank analyst Amit Mehrotra wrote in a note to clients.
The consensus among Wall Street analysts is that shareholders will overwhelmingly approve the reimbursement request.
Mr. Libich, a suggestion: Slow down and write coherent sentences instead of a tossed salad of words.
@ Richard Frick: I guess that you are not familiar with the WSJ. It is a conservative newspaper owned by the Murdock family. These days people can work at home. I’m sure that he has a computer with Wi-Fi. And a cell phone with a speaker system. So, I don’t see what the problem is. I’m not crazy about the man. But, if his doctor gave him clearance to do job, then health wise, he can do the job.
As an undisclosed medical condition already had forced hunter Harrison to spend much of his time running CP from home as after being let go before taking a position with CSX before turning the railroad around when he was warned he could be terminated if he refuses an independent medical report as he is to be judged by his performance rather than the medical report.
OMG, the Liberal “fake news media” is attacking Triple H. Who is the instigator and what is his/her
complaint? How much negative press does the USA need. Is this how WSJ stays in business?
How much money does one person need in a lifetime? No one person needs that kind of money. You can’t take it with you.
Supplemental oxygen is not to be taken lightly. These people have serious, terminal, respiratory disease. Thus sounds like very serious trouble. I wil vote NO on the $84million. This has to be egregious avarice that is beyond the pale.
How about capacity improvements to add to service reliability with that $84 million. I must confess to a measure of skepticism with respect to CSX’s reports claiming reductions in dwell times and increases in average speeds. You don’t accomplish these with fewer resources. It requires personnel to move traffic through yards and power to get over the road. I don’t believe in magic and after EHH is gone it would not surprise me to find that these figures were manipulated. I’m sure many if us will be watching. This individual does not strike me as more than a egomaniac. Perhaps he’s more like Trump than we would like.
give me a break this is worth 85 million go to the hospital and stay their Mr. Harrison .Maybe you can invest in the hospital and put you,re hospital bed in you,re LUXERY SWEET and do us all a favor and stay their
At least this will likely be the last railroad that he ruins.
Railroaders work on the railroad, not from their
estate.
“I’m having a ball and I’m running on so much adrenaline that no one can stop me.” Sounds like he came from the same School of Bragadocious that Mr Trump came from …
Mr. Jonasson, Good Point. If you can’t do your job the way it should be done, find a different job. Looks to me Hunter should be on DISABILITY.
Harrison is doing his “magic” already with projected job cuts at Selkirk, NY and elsewhere. Depends on which side of the cookie you’re on.
And what engineer or conductor would be allowed to work from home or carry an oxygen apparatus on the job? Just asking…
Well, maybe CN has improved customer service since HH left, but it is usually easier to do this when your business is on a firm operational foundation. How might this apply to HH? I have no idea and would welcome unbiased viewpoints on this site.
If you want to vote against Mantle Ridge, vote against these directors who were nominated by Mantle Ridge according to the CSX 2017 Proxy Statement:
Harrison
Hilal
Reilley
Zillmer
Riefler
and vote no on #5, Harrison’s compensation.
I vote for improved customer service, not short-term stock price increase. Improved customer service means long-term profit increase. CN has, since Harrison left, managed to improve it’s customer service and that’s why it’s so profitable.
Finally 😀
Brimstone and sulphur makes it hard to breathe. Hey, Bishop Weyland was running the Company on an oxygen tank, and look how well that turned out!
I’m sure the employees who are out of a job at Tilford and Selkirk will be very sympathetic.
Unfiltered cigarettes……..BAD
There has to be some Karma at work at CSX…..EHH is S.O.B. (medically :-O )
[CSX’s new medical check list: Hard Hat, safety glasses, gloves, safety vest, steel toed boots, and portable O2 bottle…SHEESH… I got turned down because I needed eye glasses…]
Want to die with his boots on, I suppose.
Biblical justice: he’s being choked off the same way he chokes a RR to kiss his hedge fund buddies ETD.
Renner: Brilliant!
84 million for a guy that won’t let CSX have another Doctor look at his medical records, you have to ask why to both parties? Especially when he’s carrying around an oxygen bottle. The smart money would be to spread payments out to HH over the life of his contract, just to be sure he’s still around for the last payment.