Several large less-than-truckload carriers as well as some real estate investors were named as winning bidders of defunct Yellow’s portfolio of terminals. In total, an auction that started last Tuesday netted nearly $1.9 billion in commitments for 130 of Yellow’s owned properties, according to a Monday evening filing in a Delaware court.
XPO’s (NYSE: XPO) $870 million bid for 28 properties — two of which are leased — was the largest winning bid.
Estes, which started the process with a $1.525 billion stalking horse bid that set the price floor for the auction, will walk with 24 terminals at a total purchase price of nearly $250 million.
Saia’s (NASDAQ: SAIA) bid includes 17 properties for a purchase price of $236 million.
Knight-Swift Transportation (NYSE: KNX), which amassed a $1 billion LTL network through acquisition in 2021, has a winning bid for 13 terminals at a $51 million purchase price.
Private carriers R+L Carriers and Pitt Ohio were active as well through their real estate arms.
The Moroun family, which has majority interests in Central Transport, PAM Transportation (NASDAQ: PTSI) and Universal Logistics (NASDAQ: ULH), holds a winning bid for eight properties valued at $38 million through its real estate arm, Crown Enterprises.
Not mentioned in the filing was Old Dominion Freight Line (NASDAQ: ODFL), which briefly held a top stalking horse bid of $1.5 billion. However, the carrier may still be active in the process or it could potentially acquire terminals from the winning bidders.
| Bidder | Terminal count | Purchase price |
| XPO | 28 | $870M |
| Estes | 24 | $248.7M |
| Saia | 17 | $235.7M |
| RAMAR Land Corp. (R+L Carriers) | 8 | $211.5M |
| Terminal Properties, LLC (Pitt Ohio) | 7 | $83.8M |
| Knight-Swift Transportation | 13 | $51.3M |
| ArcBest | 3 | $30.2M |
| A. Duie Pyle | 4 | $29.4M |
| TForce | 2 | $16M |
| Southeast Consolidators | 1 | $8.5M |
| Skylark Logistics | 2 | $8M |
| Z Brothers Trucking | 1 | $4.2M |
| Unis | 2 | $2.4M |
The court filing showed there were still 46 owned terminals that remain to be sold. A separate filing showed the auction of Yellow’s 140-plus leased terminals is set to reconvene on Dec. 18
Objections to the sale order are due by the end of business Friday. The court is expected to hold a hearing to approve the sales on Dec. 12.
The court recently approved the sale of Yellow’s 12,000 tractors and 35,000 trailers through auction houses. That liquidation remains ongoing.
The unwinding of Yellow’s estate is expected to generate proceeds greater than the $1.2 billion in debt held by secured lenders and the more than $200 million in bankruptcy financing provided by hedge funds.
The estate will still need to settle claims from unsecured creditors, including pension funds, which have claimed they are due billions. However, bankruptcy experts have told FreightWaves that pension withdrawal liabilities owed are likely to be negotiated to just a small fraction of a recent $6.5 billion estimate.
More FreightWaves articles by Todd Maiden
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- Saia holds on to Yellow’s freight
- Auction for Yellow’s terminals ‘remains ongoing’
Derek
I feel bad for the union employees with no pay and reduced or eliminated benefits, but ultimately it was the union that let these employees down. Yes, management at Yellow was bad, but the Teamsters not allowing a restructuring that caused the ultimate collapse. Teamsters are an absolute joke and basically anyone in the industry laughs at them – this is a case and point of a bad union closing yet another once great carrier.
On a side note, it is good that the properties are bringing in relatively high bids and it will be interesting to see where the locations are.
Sonny
My question is if unions are so great why didn’t the union bail out yellow??? Serious question.
Bruce
Yellow still owes its employees all their vacation and personal time due them. Which by law, was supposed to be paid within a month of them closing their doors on 7/30. To date they haven’t paid us JACK.
Bruce
I would like to see who is buying the terminals in Ohio. I would like to know what these companies are up to.
Stephen webster
It was strongly suggested 4 months ago a 2 billion bid from the U S gov. Should be made and excepted. That way the gov and local would safe parking with electric chargers and for final mile delivery
This now proves the 2 billion values was correct
Chi Town
What about all contractual earn a pay employees never received!
Whitney
Any idea of the locations that XPO purchased?
Tom McIntosh
This is good, and this is bad. The good? The properties are bringing substantially more than the “stalking horse” bid. That is good for all the creditors, but particularly the employees who are “priority unsecured” creditors if they filed a claim form, and perhaps even if they didn’t individually file one.
The bad? The alternate “going concern” bid of $2 billion that has a very substantial contingency most likely isn’t going anywhere except into the dust bin. The resurrection of at least part of the company proposed in that alternate bid is extremely unlikely to happen, now more so than yesterday.
It’s a terribly sad day of reckoning for this once mighty company. Its demise was very avoidable, but a combination of hideously poor executive decisions many years ago and failure to correct the glaring problems in more recent years have led to this day. I am grateful that I am retirement-eligible and that my retirement fund isn’t managed by Yellow. I wish that were true for all of my colleagues, but sadly it is not.