CSX profit falls 22% but investors focus on the direction the new CEO will take the railroad

Investors looked past a 22% drop in CSX’s third quarter earnings Thursday and focused on the direction the railroad’s new CEO might take it and the possibility of any strategic deals.

CEO Steve Angel promised to focus on making CSX the best-performing railroad. Without promising a merger, Angel said he would consider any strategic opportunities that make sense for shareholders. He also reminded investors that he ran industrial gas supplier Praxair for a decade before the opportunity to merge with rival Linde came up.

“The way these things work — these strategic opportunities — you’ve got to wait for the right timing. You’ve got to wait for when the conditions are right,” Angel said. “So what you do in the interim, you run the company to the best of your ability every day, and you create value that way. And so if and when that time comes, you’re going into that discussion from a position of strength.”

Thursday’s report was the first since Angel took the job late last month. The railroad is under pressure from investors, such as Ancora Holdings, to find another railroad to merge with, so CSX can better compete with the merged Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern railroad if that $85 billion deal gets approved. But both of CSX’s likely merger partners — BNSF and CPKC railroads — have said they aren’t interested in a deal because they believe the industry can better serve customers through cooperative agreements and avoid all the potential headaches that come with a merger.

Most observers believe CSX and BNSF will be at a disadvantage if the Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern merger is approved. That transcontinental railroad will be able to shave more than a day off delivery times because it won’t have to hand off shipments between railroads in the middle of the country. So far, CSX and BNSF say they can achieve most of the benefits of a merger through cooperative agreements instead.

Angel, 70, has not worked at a railroad before although earlier in his career he worked at GE’s locomotive building unit and developed a lifelong appreciation for railroads. He stressed the similarities between industrial gas companies and railroads, saying both focus on safety and invest heavily in the most profitable areas with the highest traffic.

The Jacksonville, Florida-based company said Thursday it earned $694 million, or 37 cents per share, in the quarter. That's down from $894 million, or 46 cents per share a year ago. But without a $164 million goodwill impairment charge, the railroad would have earned $818 million, or 44 cents per share.

The adjusted figure just topped the 43 cents per share that analysts surveyed by FactSet Research had predicted.

CSX’s performance has suffered over much of the past year because of construction projects that limited the railroad’s flexibility and reduced capacity. CSX completed repairs from Hurricane Helene and a major tunnel renovation in Baltimore last month. Its performance improved significantly throughout the quarter. The average speed of its trains increased to 18.9 mph, the fastest level since 2021. CSX also delivered 87% of its shipments on time in the quarter.

CSX is one of the largest railroads in North America, operating in the eastern United States.

FILE - A CSX freight pulls through Ohiopyle, Pa., on Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)

NEW YORK (AP) — Min Jin Lee's first novel since her million-selling “Pachinko” is a long book that grew out of a basic question: What do Koreans care most about?

“We’re obsessed with education, and it became my obsession over why Koreans care so much,” says Lee, whose “American Hagwon,” scheduled for Sept. 29, will likely be one of the year's most anticipated books. Hagwons are for-profit tutoring centers — sometimes likened to “cram schools” — where Koreans of all ages receive instruction for everything from English to guitar to cooking. Any language school or organization that gives private lesson music classes” can be considered a Hagwon, Lee says.

The author, 57, calls herself an “accidental historian,” a novelist who uses broad narratives to unearth the past, make sense of the present and explore race, gender and class among other issues. “American Hagwon” is the third of a planned quartet about Korea and the Korean diaspora that began with “Free Food for Millionaires” in 2007 and continued a decade later with “Pachinko,” a National Book Award finalist that was adapted by Apple TV+ into a series and has been translated into dozens of languages.

In 2024, The New York Times ranked “Pachinko” at No. 15 among the best novels of the 21st century.

Cardinal, a Hachette Book Group imprint, is calling her new release a deep look into “what happens when the rules shift, the world order becomes suddenly unrecognizable and benchmarks of success are no longer a guarantee.” In “American Hagwon,” Lee sets her story everywhere from Korea to Australia to Southern California as she tracks the journey of a middle-class Korean family upended by the Asian financial crisis and hoping to regain its bearings.

“Almost 10 years after Pachinko, Min Jin Lee continues to give shape to history’s seismic shifts in her fiction, refracting generational change through indelible, masterfully etched characters you can’t help rooting for,” Cardinal Publisher and Senior Vice President Reagan Arthur said in a statement.

A native of Seoul whose family emigrated to New York City when she was 7, Lee attended the elite Bronx High School of Science, studied history at Yale University and law at Georgetown University. She knows well the importance of preparation, and laughs as she remembers that her father has nicknamed her “the turtle,” because she is slow — but “very steady.” Her books take a long time, in part, because she puts so much work into them. Her stories are based not just on research and reflection, but on extended travel and interviews.

“I want to hold up a mirror to society, and, as the kids say, do a ’vibe check,” she says.

FILE - Min Jin Lee attends the GQ Global Creativity Awards in New York on April 6, 2023. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)