CP 1941 Annual Report & Flags Which Fall

Press release:

CPKC becomes the first and only single-line railway connecting Canada, the U.S. and Mexico

CALGARY, AB, April 14, 2023 /CNW/ - Canadian Pacific ("CP") and Kansas City Southern ("KCS") today combined to create Canadian Pacific Kansas City (TSX: CP) (NYSE: CP) ("CPKC"), as authorized by the U.S. Surface Transportation Board's ("STB") March 15, 2023 final decision, creating the first single-line railway connecting Canada, the U.S., and Mexico.

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'In 1885, our railroad connected a new country.'

from: The final (2022) annual report of the Canadian Pacific Railway.

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'A start at documenting recently departed railroads was made by David P Morgan and J David Ingles in a series of articles titled 'Fallen Flags' in Trains Magazine. Those articles reviewed the major railroads that had vanished since World War Two, and their theme was the genesis of this book.'

from: The Historical Guide to North American Railroads; George H Drury; 1985; Kalmbach.

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Detail from: Battle of Isandhlwana, 1879 - "as it probably never was"
from: Great Military Blunders; Geoffrey Regan; 2000; Macmillan.

from: British Flags on Land and Sea; Andrew D MacLean; 1929; Hugh C MacLean Publications Ltd, Toronto.
On Page17, the 1627 origins of the white, blue and red ensigns are discussed.

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'Railways draw traffic from a geographic area, move it over their network, and distribute it to their final destination using their own facilities, equipment, and in some cases, those of other carriers. The railway's infrastructure in many cases evolved over time (e.g., Canadian Pacific's transcontinental network was first established in 1867).'

from: 

Handbook of Canadian Security Analysis, 

A Guide to Evaluating the Industry Sectors of the Market, from Bay Street's Top Analysts

(Joe Kan, CFA; 1997; Wiley & Sons)

Quote is from the chapter on Transportation & Environmental Services, by [name redacted], CFA.

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'Rally 'Round the Flag'

From some source in the past, I understood that history is helpful because it helps explain who we are and how we got here. 

Historiography is the study of historical writing. 

Regimental flags, battle flags, national flags, imperial flags have a special meaning because of what they represent. They represent The Regiment and its Battle Honours ... or the ideals of the people fighting and dying in battle. There have been terrible losses when the flag 'falls'. It only happens when an army is utterly defeated - there is no one left with the remaining strength to prevent the flag from touching the ground, or from being disgraced by a victorious enemy. 

The Canadian Pacific Railway has always been larger than a simple railway - in what it was intended to achieve politically and practically, and in what the company's leaders intended it to be. It was conceived to settle the former Hudson's Bay lands and ensure 'the west' became part of British North America - not part of the United States. It was a land and sea bridge which spanned much of the British Empire and was ready to serve the needs of the British Empire/British Commonwealth in two world wars. Of course, the Canadian Pacific received money in the course of performing these missions.

In the Great War, it transported labourers from China by ship, and across Canada (in bond), to labour in or near the trenches in Europe. It contributed the expertise of its railway workers and equipment to build and maintain rail transport to the trenches. Its passenger ships were requisitioned as troop transports by the Royal Navy (but sometimes they asked first). In its stations the railway subsequently erected beautiful and poignant statues to pay tribute to its own employees who had made the supreme sacrifice in war. 

In World War Two, the railway's airline personnel were key in the early establishment of the innovative system which would fly new aircraft to Britain from North America - avoiding the U-boat infested waters of the North Atlantic. CPR airline personnel and facilities also played an important role in the plan to train Commonwealth (and American) citizens as pilots and in other flight crew roles. Until amphibious landings could be made in Africa, Italy, France ... Britain defended itself and struck out at the enemy primarily with aircraft. CPR heavy shops were also used in the production of guns and tanks.

The CPR is a corporation, and a corporation is a legal entity, and its board of directors acts as its fiduciary. Ideally, under an independent chair, the board also directly supervises high-level corporate officers such as the 'President and CEO'. Other company officers are hired to lead and supervise the running of the corporation's day-to-day business.

A corporation is in an excellent position to facilitate the writing of its own history through cooperative authors. Books with titles such as The Imperial Highway (1912) and Steel of Empire: The Romantic History of the Canadian Pacific (1937) reminded people of the importance of the Canadian Pacific - just before the wars mentioned above. A corporation is designed to preserve itself, so from a historiographical and public relations standpoint, that's exactly what it does. 

... Those poignant statues were designed to tug at our old imperial, patriotic and religious heartstrings - they are not photographs of a railway volunteer's death by artillery. It is normal healthy corporate behaviour to make us feel grateful to them for honouring 'their' troops. And today they still do this with paint.

Moving closer to the subject of paint - if tomorrow, just the signs and paper coffee cups suddenly said Babe Ruths instead of Tim Hortons ... it wouldn't change the fact that 'Timmies' is controlled by 3G Capital. 3G wouldn't employ more or fewer Canadians. Employees wouldn't get paid more or less. The menu wouldn't change. Babe Ruths wouldn't be a more or less valuable contributor to the quality of Canadian life than it was under its former name. It would just look different and some people might feel differently about it. Of course, the business would receive advice not to make this change if it had an impact on revenues.

Running trades employees of a railway corporation may have liked the camaraderie they shared with their fellow employees. They may have loved their unique work on the good days. They may have been proud of their achievements during their careers - particularly when winning a key 'battle' against the elements or other circumstances. Railways are still organized along paramilitary lines in many ways.

... But it seems very unlikely that running trades employees love the board of directors.

In turn, did board members become emotional, inconsolable ... when the railway left Rogers Pass and its snowsheds, REITed out its hotels, tore up the DAR, converted to roller bearings, eliminated its fleets of passenger ships, closed Angus, moved CPR headquarters from Montreal to Calgary, diminished The Canadian? 

... Knowing corporate history and being able to explain the human experience of CPR railroading is not the board's job. The present, and the foreseeable future of the corporation is the board's focus.

Amateur and professional historians can point out the remaining physical artifacts, the stations, the roadbeds, the cuts and embankments which remain on the land as a record of the CPR's presence across Canada. They can explain the significance of what the board and officers achieved (always indirectly) through the work of the corporation's employees. 

The human experience of those employees has probably always been the most Canadian thing about the Canadian Pacific Railway. 

In the past, the CPR eagerly and willingly served the far-flung British Empire. The company is now eagerly and willingly integrated into the American 'post-war, rules-based' economic and military empire, as a 'pure play' railway ... sorry ... railroad.

Whether or not the locomotives of two large railways have the letter 'C' painted on them 

is a facile, superficial and doomed way to understand and preserve our national identity. 

The knowledge and interpretation of history is supposed to help us with that task. 

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The annual report which follows, 

comes from the end of the presidency of 

the first Canadian-born president of the CPR.

Typical of our political and economic orientation at the time ...

he was knighted by the King to be ...

Knight Grand Cross of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire

Beatty was President of the CPR from 11 October 1918 

until 1942 when his doctors (and the company) convinced him to resign.

He died in 1943 at age 65.

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From the final (2022) CPR Annual Report:

'In 2023 we aspire to connect a continent and transform the freight rail industry'

See the maps inside the back cover of this annual report.

Contemplate the old slogan: World's Greatest Transportation System

Both Herbert Holt and Arthur Purvis have interesting, perhaps contrasting, pages on Wikipedia.

(The mention of one at a baseball game inspired applause!)

Canadian Pacific Annual Reports 1997-1999 - A few historically interesting bits.

Most CEOs LOVE this time of year. 

It's Annual Report Season!

Soon shareholders will be invited to dilute their shares and decrease their net earnings ... through rich grants of stock options (regulators once thought that stock options didn't cost anything!), and generous executive pay and perquisites for company officers. 

The executives get very wealthy on our capital.

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Unintentionally, while growing up, I was trained to believe that every railway artifact was an artifact for preservation. (I unlearned this the hard way - while working as a volunteer at a railway museum.) Unintentionally, I became a collector of Canadian Pacific annual reports. 

I have tried to find a few interesting bits from a few of them. As someone recently observed - when something gets old enough, it becomes interesting.

Annual reports existed to provide audited financial statements (always read the footnotes!), and Management's Discussion and Analysis, to shareholders. With the development of algorithmic trading and Exchange Traded Funds, few people today probably use old-fashioned paper documents in this old-fashioned way. 

If you would like to see and save PDF annual reports for Canadian issuers (including the CPR) you can find them at the website below. The website itself is historically beautiful because it has not changed in format or function since it went on line over 20 years ago! It is the VIA 6300 of financial websites.

System for Electronic Document Analysis and Retrieval (SEDAR)

https://www.sedar.com/homepage_en.htm

Documents for:

Canadian Pacific Railway Company

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Canadian Pacific Limited was the first stock I owned and the 1997 annual report came from the first Annual General Meeting I ever attended. It was held at the CP Royal York, the food was great, and they had a diesel locomotive simulator set up in a neighbouring room. 

In general, all AGMs are as slick as annual report cover. Non-management Shareholder Proposals are dispatched quicker than a silk train. 

Here are a few historically interesting pages from the 1997 document ... the oil price assumptions are particularly interesting.

Below, considering only US $ inflation,  US $24.47 oil in 1997 is equivalent to USD $39.33 oil in 2020.

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1998 Annual Report

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1999 Annual Report

The 1998 back cover addresses (above) the 1999 address (below).
"Out west is where the customers are!"

Linked to his periodic re-introduction of replays of the CBC/NFB series The National Dream, it was shocking (on one occasion) to hear Pierre Berton candidly state that he had never liked railways. He was probably referring to their activities and behaviour as big corporations. One could argue that the Hudson's Bay Company was a large organization which adapted slightly more to the indigenous cultural reality in Canada to conduct its business.

On Ken Finkleman's 1996-2005 series The Newsroom, a resourceful intern dealing with a phone complaint, dismissed a bit of her boss's aberrant and intolerant behaviour by stating "He's just at that age where he believes everything he reads in The Globe and Mail". 

On March 3, 2020, The Globe and Mail printed an article titled:
‘The railways got very wealthy on our land’: How rail’s colonial past made it a target for blockades.

For the very few people who may find this post in the future ...

The article above referred to what Wikipedia is today calling: 

2020 Canadian pipeline and railway protests

The blockades exposed general journalistic ignorance of the extent of Canada's railway network and the resources of the Canadian Railway Association. Many people have no conception of the inertia associated with moving freight trains (the engineer is not trying to run over people who suddenly jump in front of the train to rock-test the FRA Type 1 glazing). And the events made even casual news observers aware of concepts such as Turtle Island, settler culture and unceded lands.

Historiography is a fascinating area of study. 

... For those who have recently enjoyed the opportunity to learn more about indigenous history ... the assumed wholesomeness of the story from 1999 (below) comes from another time and another historical voice.

It comes from the type of Canadian corporation that even Pierre Berton could not love unconditionally.

Map above: The railway has already forgotten where Montreal is!

CPR Annual Report 1946, Balance Sheet

The annual railway show was held here today and here is one of the artifacts I was able to obtain. The cover above shows Jack Fish Curve - a view which would be near and dear to Rolly Martin's heart as he worked through this territory, beginning in the steam days.

So as not to scare the shareholders, a summer photo has been used. Originally taken in black and white, it has be colourized - the freight train is eastbound and is just timetable west of the Jack Fish station and coal dock.

The balance sheet for 1946 is shown above.

At the left is 'What the company owns' ...

At the right is 'Who put it there'.

Integral to any set of financial statements is the Report of the Auditors (the green rectangle) - stating that in their professional opinion the financial statements fairly represent the financial position of the company at the date identified (so: things looked OK two months before the auditors issued the statement above - has anything bad happened since?).

The auditors work on behalf of the shareholders. The original value of shareholders' investment is shown under 'Liabilities' - 'Capital Stock'. The shareholders elect the Board of Directors which has a fiduciary responsibility to the corporation. The Board hires the company executives.

• (In recent years, accounting firms have become relatively more aggressive in their accounting practices and they have also become more involved in management consulting for company executives - this consulting is generally much more lucrative than preparing that green rectangle. Some may argue that the auditors no longer represent the interests of shareholders first and foremost. But in my 'stockbroker courses', they always insisted that the auditors are hired by, and work for, the shareholders. So let's leave it at that.)

Interesting details about the company's operations can be imagined as you read through some of CPR's post-World War Two Assets on the left.

Something which cannot be ignored on the Liabilities side is debt. In particular, bank loans and/or bonds are generally secured on assets (collateral) which the company needs to earn income. If the Board and company officers rack up too much debt: during lean times, the company may be unable to meet scheduled interest payments and even scheduled principal repayments (for the latter, think of the 'face value' of millions of dollars of bonds when they come due). 

In extreme cases, debt defaults may result in the market value of the shareholders' outstanding stock being reduced to zero. For example, a bank which has taken possession of a defaulting railway now owns it, and has no reason to issue dividends to the old railway shareholders - the bank's officers and Board have their own shareholders to please! ...

Banks are in the business of hearing clean money from loans rattle into the till - not hearing grimy boxcars rattling down the track ... so issuing a loan to a railway which subsequently defaulted is somewhat like a bank 'putting a train in the bush'.

That debt risk to the market value of a shareholder's investment is just one reason why the Annual Report is a significant document.