Quote:
Originally Posted by paperplane
Isn't there like 30 years left on their lease?
And Herb Black is so litigious things are stalled as it is, imagine if the Port terminated the lease, there'd be 30 years of lawsuits and/or the Port wouldn't want to pay the sums of money he'd want to terminate.
Seems like the only option is DPW pays Herb a ridiculous amount of money and/or Carney, otherwise, it's playing the 30-year long game...
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it's not a 30 year long game. It's 16 years and DPW signed a 30 year lease knowing that AIM had a lease until 2042. DPW re-upped to 60 years with the facts being what they currently are right now. I don't know why DPW would pay any exorbitant amount of money when they probably have first dibs on that lot if they want it after Herb/AIM either runs out of cash or contract. In fact, Herb might be doing DPW a favour. He's essentially keeping that site off the market, reserving it for DPW, while DPW has the pressure reduced on them to fill that 1M TEU capacity. AIM is paying the carrying costs on land that has no other buyer. You'd have a hard time finding me DPW's argument for wanting Herb gone right now.
The smartest thing DPW could say right now is, "Herb who?" while they let Herb's clock run out. The favour he's doing them is immense, even if it's entirely unintentional.
Don't hold your breath waiting for any politician to pay him off either. There's no political capital reward for that. There's no pot of gold for Herb's investment in lawyers and time. AIM still has liability for what happens on that site until 2042. I have to assume they paid for all the remediation on that lot. If this is all still status quo in 2042, Herb has wasted a ton of money making a few lawyers rich and zero to show for it. Don't even consider any payout to AIM until that 1M TEU capacity is used up. The only other pressure to settle this would be if there was a large federal grant with a short best before date. That's not on the table so no hurry. The capacity at the port is 1M TEU's. That's an average of 3000 TEU/day. The entire intermodal business is in a slump this year from geopolitical stupidity. Until that gets put to bed, especially, don't expect any movement on that file. H-L and CMA CGM missed in Q1 so let Herb keep paying all he wants for now. At least he's not blowing anything up, or even disturbing the sleep of local residents.
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