As one senior executive put it, "Nobody's walking around in a panic over this."

Stevens's executives themselves put the company in play almost three months ago when they offered to buy it for $765 million.

An executive at one company put the cost of the project's initial development at $850 million.

The industry wanted someone with "clout," as one executive put it.

With Project Spring dead, many senior executives put the need for more capital out of mind.

As one executive put it, "I would kill for that book."

As one media executive put it, "That is not bad for 18 months' work, and he is free to do something else."

With the public sector "just tapped out," as one executive put it, this may sometimes be the only way to build a road.

One executive put the chance of such a deal at less than 50 percent.

Otherwise the year has been, as one executive put it, "pathetic."