A second lot of Yellow’s terminals have found new homes, according to a Wednesday filing in a Delaware bankruptcy court. The latest auction for a portion of the defunct less-than-truckload carrier’s leased properties raked in $83 million across 23 locations.
The first wave, which included 130 terminals — only two of which were leased — fetched nearly $1.9 billion.
Carriers that participated in the first auction again hold winning bids.
The recent auction, which included winning bids from just six LTL carriers, occurred Monday and Tuesday. Estes holds the largest bid at $35.3 million for five properties. The carrier previously locked up 24 terminals valued at $248.7 million.
RAMAR Land Corp. (R+L Carriers) landed three terminals valued at $9 million. The carrier took home $211.5 million in real estate in the first auction.
Saia (NASDAQ: SAIA) has a winning bid for 11 sites at $7.9 million across several Western states with a concentration in Montana, South Dakota and Wyoming. It won 17 terminals for $235.7 million earlier this month.
Other bidders included ArcBest (NASDAQ: ARCB) with one property in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, at a value of $7.8 million and Knight-Swift (NYSE: KNX), which got two properties at a little more than $400,000 in Montana and Washington.
FedEx Freight (NYSE: FDX), which wasn’t active in the prior auction, walked away with a winning bid of $22.5 million for one terminal outside of Reno, Nevada.
| Bidder | Terminal count | Purchase price |
| Estes | 5 | $35.3M |
| FedEx Freight | 1 | $22.5M |
| RAMAR Land Corp. (R+L Carriers) | 3 | $9.0M |
| Saia | 11 | $7.9M |
| ArcBest | 1 | $7.8M |
| Knight-Swift | 2 | $417,150 |
The sale of Yellow’s leased properties also requires the new tenants to pay costs to cure the current leases as Yellow was delinquent in rent payments and had failed to make required repairs in many locations.
“Winning bids for certain properties include additional payments for cure costs in addition to the cash purchase price noted herein,” the filing read.
There are still 118 leased properties remaining to be sold as well as another 46 terminals that the company owns.
A hearing to approve the sale of the leased properties is scheduled for Jan. 12. Objections to the sales or assurance of future performance are due to the court by Jan. 5.
XPO’s (NYSE: XPO) $870 million bid for 28 properties was the largest winning bid in the first auction. The carrier recently said that it will make repairs and rebrand the terminals prior to reopening them, which will occur throughout 2024 and into 2025. It closed on the acquisition of the properties on Wednesday.
The relaunch of Yellow’s terminals may not upset the current supply-demand balance in the market.
Some of the recently acquired sites represent upgrades to better or bigger locations for carriers and are not full incremental capacity additions. Also, many of the service centers are now in the hands of more price-disciplined carriers versus Yellow, which was known as a low-cost provider. Lastly, some of the future sales will likely include buyers that will repurpose the terminals for use outside of LTL operations.
The court recently approved the sale of Yellow’s 12,000 tractors and 35,000 trailers through auction houses. That liquidation remains ongoing.
More FreightWaves articles by Todd Maiden
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Billy Gist
I worked in the freight business as a teamster or finally as an owner of a small company from the age of 18 until 72 yrs old.
The happiest two days was when I was able to buy a small company and the day I closed it up at age 72. I had good people all union
but we worked out our own problems and the only time I heard from the union was when I notified them I was closing. I had great employees because we were a small company and worked out our own problems as they occurred. When I retired I sent letters of recommendations to several companies that might hire them, some retired and some got jobs on their own.
I feel I did the right thing because they were good people and did good work. Billy Gist
formerly owner of The Welling CO’s and Gist Transportation Inc. St.Louis,Mo
JG
MD and Freight Zippy: Let’s be real honest here. Yellow Freight’s management on all levels were inadequate to do their jobs. Yellow went through countless CEO’s to stop the bleeding. It’s simple math, you can’t spend more then you take in, and Yellow was doing that all through the Obama years right up to the present shut down in 2023. You can’t blame it on the Teamsters or the IBT, which gave concessions and modified contractual language to help the company. Yellow was not paying into a Union pension or paying Union scale rates for drivers and dock. That alone should have allowed Yellow to be profitable with that handicap. But once again, you can’t spend more then you take in. Failure was just predictable. And last but not least, Yellow gave out “MILLIONS” in bonuses prior to the sinking knowing full well what was about to happen. Talk about cut throat. JG 889 Hayward CA.
MD
Freight Zippy is right on. Chris 158, no one is black listing, these companies are well aware of what the Teamsters are all about. Whiney, lazy, can’t come to work FMLA abusers. Yellow had some of the worst claims in the industry because Teamsters were TOO LAZY to load correctly. Who would want to hire any of that. Won’t be long before the other two carriers that are union will be out of business. Non-union carriers rule and make money, they don’t have the Teamsters dragging them down. Go call O’Brien for a job, see what it gets you.
Freight Zippy
This bankruptcy is a direct result of the stupidity of the union leadership and the moronic posting of Yellow’s Tombstone.
The union was trying to be tough this way UPS feared the same fate. That fatal strategy cost 30,000 jobs.
This sheer stupidity was perhaps the worst in union history.
Yet union members still back this buffoon..