Private prison corporation CoreCivic gets downgraded as banks leave industry

19) Maryland: Llowell Williams says Baltimore’s banning of water privatization could become a model for the country. “This confirms what would be expected in most situations of utility privatization: artificially created scarcity used to justify price increases. When water is commodified by the private sector, its value inevitably changes to be something to generate profit.”

“Fitch will assess the company’s ability to replace existing bank syndicate members and access new and existing capital sources during the one-to-two year Outlook horizon, including public and private bonds and equity. Prison real estate generally lacks secured property mortgage access, a key contingent liquidity source for equity REITs, making it more reliant on bank and debt capital markets access.” They say “the private prison sector also faces negative headwinds from social pressures, and longer-term correctional trends are shifting away from imprisonment of non-violent offenders and toward rehabilitation and re-entry for minor drug offenses and other misdemeanors.”

There is also a sting in the tail of Fitch’s assessment concerning CoreCivic’s status as a Real Estate Investment Trust and the nature of its assets: “The lack of alternative uses and absence of secured debt financeability of CXW’s corrections assets results in Fitch analyzing the company more like a traditional cash flow-generating corporate entity, as opposed to an asset-rich equity REIT, despite the tax election.”

AFGE local treasurer Nicole Lage “said she joined in the protest because the national organization has proposed to cut 28 articles out of its master agreement. ‘It is going from over 300 pages down to 98 pages,’ Lage said. ‘They’re cutting out telework. They’re cutting out flex-in-and-out schedules. No compressed tours. They’re taking away our rights for our annual leave and sick leave and leaving it up to a supervisor’s discretion, and that’s not right. We earned that.’” Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg “sent a letter to the AFGE, which said, ‘This administration’s ongoing attempts to privatize veterans’ health care and hamstring workers are a national shame. VA Secretary Wilkie should have the interests of workers and veterans at heart, not corporations who will exploit taxpayer dollars for profit.’”

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