CN’s JJ Ruest and KCS’ Pat Ottensmeyer Emphasized Compelling Public Interest and Competitive Benefits of Transaction at Bernstein’s 37th Annual Strategic Decisions Conference

JJ Ruest, President and Chief Executive Officer of CN (TSX: CNR) (NYSE: CNI) and Patrick J. Ottensmeyer, President and Chief Executive Officer of Kansas City Southern (“KCS”) (NYSE: KSU) presented today at Bernstein’s 37^th Annual Strategic Decisions Conference. In their prepared remarks and the fireside chat, both CEOs articulated how the combination of CN and KCS will create a fully end-to-end merger that will deliver significant public interest benefits for customers, ports, employees, communities and the environment.

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The CN-KCS combination will create an end-to-end merger with significant options for customers in the North-South corridor. With CN’s commitment to divest KCS’ 70-mile line between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, the proposed combination creates an end-to-end merger and provides no risk to competition. In fact, customers will now be able to access new markets that were not previously available to them via efficient single-line service. Customers will continue to have multiple options to move goods along this corridor, including the availability to use an improved new CN-KCS route, five other Class I railroad routings, the Mississippi River and two major interstate highways. Customers will not lose any existing routing options because CN and KCS are committed to preserving access to all existing gateways to enhance route choices and to ensure robust price competition. (Graphic: Business Wire)

“The economy in North America, especially now post-COVID, really needs a network of the kind that we are talking about putting together especially as it relates to USMCA. There is something in it for shareholders. There is something in it for customers. There is something in it for employees – this is a growth project. It will create jobs. There is something in it for the port operators, which connect to us. It will give them better access to more cities, more importers, more exporters, so they too can do what they do best.”

- JJ Ruest, president and chief executive officer of CN

“This combination will create a truly end-to-end network that will provide a new single line service to go after the I-35 freight corridor and the market opportunity that exists there. I think this will clearly be of interest to a lot of shippers as demonstrated by the support we have seen already, as well as create new competitive options that simply don’t exist today. We are combining two important segments that are already recognized as premium service segments, and this network is going to be unparalleled in terms of the access to markets, ports and the way we can participate in and help drive some of the economic growth we think will exist in the years ahead.”