An auction for Yellow Corp.’s terminals hasn’t ended yet, a Delaware court filing revealed late Friday.
The auction for the bankrupt company’s less-than-truckload terminals began Tuesday morning, with an expectation that winning bids would be revealed Friday. The court document said it may now be Tuesday (Dec. 5) before the new owners of the service centers are made public.
Yellow operated roughly 300 terminals before it ceased operations at the end of July. Some of its property leases have already been terminated. However, parties interested in its more than 170 owned terminals were required to have their bids in by Nov. 9.
Less-than-truckload carrier Estes’ $1.525 billion stalking horse bid was named as the winning bid for the facilities in late September. That offer set the price floor for the current auction process.
What remains to be seen is the status of a going concern bid led by Jack Cooper Transport’s Executive Chair Sarah Amico.
The offer was reported to include $1.1 billion in new debt to pay off secured lenders and the hedge funds providing bankruptcy financing as well as $1.5 billion in preferred equity to satisfy claims from unsecured creditors. The linchpin for Amico’s offer, however, would require the U.S. Treasury to extend the maturity of a $700 million Covid-relief loan by two years from September 2024.
The plan received the support of nearly a dozen senators as well as the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which represented roughly 22,000 of Yellow’s 30,000 employees. However, Treasury has been reported to be weighing its options of potentially rescuing some of those jobs against its fiduciary obligation to taxpayers, which would be made whole under the current Chapter 11 liquidation plan.
The balance on Treasury’s financing package with Yellow stands at more than $737 million, according to recent court filings.
Yellow’s roughly 12,000 tractors and 35,000 trailers were previously approved by the court for sale through auction houses.
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