A federal judge approved plans to liquidate what little assets remain of bankrupt trucking company Comcar Industries: ostensibly real estate.
The Chapter 11 liquidation plan received approval on Wednesday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. The remaining assets will be sold through two trusts, with an expected recovery of $23.4 million, according to court filings.
About $15 million will be available to creditors, according to liquidation analysis filed in the court in January. Most will be distributed to secured creditors, with $3.1 million left for unsecured creditors — with about $78.6 million in claims.
What remains amounts to the table scraps of a massive, privately held trucking company that operated across the U.S. The heart of the Florida-based company — its trucking operations — was sold in a series of bankruptcy deals in 2020.
TFI International (NYSE: TFII) made three acquisitions from Comcar during its buying spree that year. The Canadian-based company picked up Comcar carriers CCC Transportation, CT Transportation and MCT Transportation.
TFI CEO Alain Bedard opined on the Comcar deals during a call with financial analysts in October: “I said, ‘Guys, can we find a company that’s got assets, which is people, and they don’t know what to do with it?’ So this is why we bought this guy that was under the protection of the court. We bought MCT from him. We bought CT from him, and we bought CCC from him.”
Closing a chapter in one the largest trucking bankruptcies in recent memory
The Comcar bankruptcy was among the largest in the U.S. trucking industry in recent memory. At the time of filing, in May 2020, the company had over 4,000 trucks and more than 40 terminals.
Ultimately, the company found itself overburdened with debt, while sustaining heavy losses. At the time of filing, it had $66.7 million in assets and $85.6 million in liabilities.
Comcar had lost $25 million in 2019 and had already lost $6 million midway through 2020, according to a court filing.
The prepackaged bankruptcy led to a far more orderly wind down compared to the chaotic shutdown at Celadon Group the previous December.
Nonetheless, it had its share of legal drama. Sales of CCC Transportation and CTTS Repair to a group headed by Comcar’s former chairman fell through after unsecured creditors voiced opposition.