Route 40 (https://rtforty.com/2016/05/)
SOMETIMES IN THE SOUL’S DARK NIGHT or when I just have nothing better to do, I like to go trawling through old books or magazine articles about Atlantic City to find the passages where the town is compared to an aging prostitute.
The gas and energy company South Jersey Industries, which last week said it would look to raise about $200 million, on Monday told regulators it would sell its new shares at $26.25 each, a slight discount to where the shares were trading last week. The company expects to raise about $204 million after expenses and if the banks selling the stock exercise their so-called ‘greenshoe’ option to buy shares, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The proceeds from the stock sale will be used to invest in infrastructure for the company’s South Jersey Gas utility business, as well as paying down some of its debt, according to the filing.
Frank LoBiondo, R-NJ second district, on Wednesday voted in favor of establishing an inter-agency task force to assess pain medication prescription practices. The bill, supported by representatives from both parties, will now proceed to the Senate. Opioid prescription and addiction is a huge issue in South Jersey and Route 40 hopes to follow this topic closely.
Local gas utility company, South Jersey Gas, on Tuesday told regulators it plans to sell up to 7.5 million shares–worth around $200 million based on the company’s $27.60 share price before the offer was announced. You can see the full prospectus here on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s site, along with a presentation to analysts and investors, but here are some factoids on the regional gas provider that we gleaned from the announcement:
The company, known as South Jersey Industries and headquartered in Folsom, Atlantic County, had revenue of nearly $1 billion last year and a core profit of $157 million. South Jersey Industries operates throughout Atlantic, Cape May, Cumberland and Salem counties and also covers parts of Burlington, Camden and Gloucester counties. Most of the company’s money comes from its gas utility business, but it also operates “South Jersey Energy Solutions”, which offers HVAC and meter-reading services as well as energy generation. According to the prospectus, the company is planning to invest in this business and earn more money from it in the future.
Socialism for billionaires, free-enterprise for the average Joe
My old friend the fat-cat retired Atlantic City lifeguard pension profiteer is in the news again in this season of “shared sacrifice” here in our fabled Queen of Resorts, this time in the pages of the New York Times, where he’s presented as a symbol, I perceive, of the outrageous greed and excess at the heart of our dilapidated republic. Novice economists might suppose this greed and excess was concentrated within our citadels of high finance, or among the titans of industry—in this case the casino gambling industry—who so enriched themselves while leaving a string of empty eyesores atop our most important natural resource (the beach and boardwalk). This would be incorrect. Our problems here in Atlantic City—generations in the making—are not the result of a concentration of political power in the hands of financiers or gambling moguls, but rather to the unrestrained avarice of our municipal working class. John Steinbeck, that great chronicler of the American everyman, once wrote that socialism never took root in our native soils because the American proletariat does not identify as an exploited working class.
The New Jersey agency charged with investing proceeds from Atlantic City’s casino business to create jobs and otherwise benefit the South Jersey region has failed to publish its annual report by its May 1 due date. A spokeswoman for the agency, known as the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority (CRDA), said its board had not yet approved the annual report. “They are meeting again on 5/17, I’m not sure if it will be on the agenda for that meeting,” spokeswoman Karen Martin added in an email. As a government agency, the CRDA has to publish audited annual financial statements. These help taxpayers see how the agency is being run and how it is spending its money.
