Motor carrier holding company Comcar Industries announced on Sunday, May 17, that it has filed for court-supervised bankruptcy protection and plans to liquidate by selling off its five trucking companies.
In terms of size, Comcar was bigger than Celadon when it filed bankruptcy in late 2019, but the prepackaged bankruptcy that Comcar has organized will be more structured and seamless than the abrupt shutdown of Celadon.
Three of the company’s buyers were identified in the disclosure:
– Flatbed hauler CT Transportation will be acquired by PS Logistics, which since the end of 2018 has also bought Celadon Logistics, Riechmann Transport and Robinette Trucking.
– Chemical carrier CTL Transportation will be acquired by Service Transport Co. or STI. STI is a broad-based carrier based in Houston.
– MCT Transportation will be sold to White Willow Holdings, a private equity firm backed by New York investment house Luminus Management LLC. MCT Transportation is a refrigerated carrier that also provides dry van services. Earlier this year FreightWaves reported that White Willow sought to acquire holdings out of the Celadon bankruptcy.
Earlier this month it was reported that White Willow was in discussions to buy Celadon’s Mexican assets.
Comcar also said it has entered into a letter of intent to sell CCC Transportation, a bulk carrier and CTTS Repair. The identity of the intended purchaser was not disclosed.
According to the company’s website, Comcar dates its history back to 1953. CCC was the original company that launched what ultimately became Comcar, which was sold to private equity in 2016.
Comcar is filing under Chapter 11 of the federal bankruptcy code in a pre-packaged action that is also governed by the section 363 sale process. Under the 363 sale process, the announced buyers of the Comcar assets are considered to be “stalking horses” that ultimately could be outbid for the assets in an auction process supervised by the bankruptcy court.
In a prepared statement attributed to Comcar senior management, the company said it decided to file for bankruptcy protection “to better enable us to find homes for our customers, people and assets.”
The company said in its filing, “Prior to this decision, we worked diligently to find a solution that would reduce our debt, enhance our liquidity and best position all Comcar holdings for the future. After evaluating options to address our capital structure and conducting extensive negotiations, we determined that a sale of all companies would be the best path forward to maximize their value.”
The individual companies will continue to operate during the bankruptcy process, Comcar said in its statement.
Randy Clark, Comcar’s CEO, who was appointed to head the company just last year, died unexpectedly in early April. According to a story about his death in the Jacksonville Business Journal, Clark had been an executive at DHL and Polar Air Cargo, and the CEO of Streamlite and Towne Transportation.
Pallet breakdown, 2 layer off the top, shrink wrap, piece count , Pump pallet jack ,
I applied for a job and they said they are only hiring owner operators because we can rip them off
Shane H
Please please STOP associating this closure with the pandemic, it had zero to do with COVID 19 and everything to do with mismanagement. All you so called journalist arnt even checking your stories you just post a sensational headline a
and blame a virus for years upon years of horrible management decisions. Editors here should be ashamed, this is the kind of fear tactic sensationalism that 2 bit hack rag ad tabloids use. Their filing faor chap 11 because their lies can no longer cover up their horrible decisions horrible negotiations and just down right piss poor decision making ability.
Mike
Well this isn’t good news for me. I work for the Ctts division in Tampa Florida and had just over $5,000 dollars in my personal tools stolen from the shop when it was broken into about a year ago. If anyone has any info on how I can get this resolved while Comcar is filing bankruptcy please let me now.
Ctl Saint Gabriel John brown is a big dickhead
Lmao piss poor as company
Peggy Lowery
So saddened to hear this. I worked for MCT back in the late 80’s.
Ronald J Robertson
I worked for ComCar and this is no surprise to me. They were the most mismanaged outfit I ever worked for and the top management was dishonest with employees they would spend a fortune to screw people out of a few bucks.
Dave
Yep – everything with freight volumes MUST be just fine. Freightwaves scientists say so. Tell Comcar. 🙂
Corey Holmes
Wow so it start