The newly formed Badlands Railway Company has officially notified CN Rail it wishes to begin the negotiation process to acquire the rail line from Oyen to Lyalta.
The company has been working hard to raise the needed commitment and capital from area producers to be in a position to make that offer. While it did not reach its initial goal, the company feels it is in a good position to start the process.
“Our initial goal was to reach a shareholder base of 200 and a seed capital base of $300,000. As of February 5, we were half-way to that goal,” said interim president Dwayne Marshman. “As a board we feel we have sufficient support from the producers, businesses and communities to move forward and notify CN we are in a position to begin negotiations on an offer.”
He says if the company can come to an agreement with CN on the purchase and or partial lease and establish a final offer, the company will have to restructure and develop a share offering and structure that it feels best enables the company to raise the capital necessary to complete the deal.
While the company is ready to start the negotiations, it continues to solicit additional Class A shareholders, and will be scheduling meetings in the near future. Marshman encourages those interested to come out and take advantage of these initial shares.
“Once we have reached our goal for raising seed capital, we will have to cut off sales of these shares. In our new structure, if the board and shareholders so desire, we could and should makes these Class A shares convertible and transferable into our new structure,” he said. “There could be a slight reward for the initial investors at the discretion of the shareholders.”
