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
- Landstar CEO Jim Gattoni to retire
- Saia holds on to Yellow’s freight
- Auction for Yellow’s terminals ‘remains ongoing’
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Paul ausherman
I still don’t understand why upper management is not held accountable by prison time and other serious punishments. But let the blue-collar man do some b******* like that. And he’d be behind bars for the rest of his life.
Westicle
Tens of Millions of that government loan was used to pay interest payments of all the outstanding loans they already had.
Don Corbin
Unbelievable….that’s some high dollar real estate!! It seems either the companies or banks have more money than sense…”a fool and his money are soon parted!” If I were XPO…I’d be pissed!!
Anonymous
This is all of the key factors, Yellow Corps gross mismanagement of its finances, Public bullying from Teamsters, Repeated losing and damaging freight (no accountability), Freight rates were lowest ( hauling garbage freight). Senior Management pushing their numbers on down the chain. Sad thing is the employees & customers suffered, Why Because of GREED.
Craig
After paying the depts back pay the pension for all employees from 2010 to 2023 and pay the central states. The eastern really took the hardest hit in pension and pay.
Russell Say
Not that its great to be partially disabled but it feels good getting out before it all fell apart, lots of good people lost there jobs because of the Yellows inability to run a company.
David Evans
Once the Titanic started bleeding, the writing was on the wall. Getting bigger by taking over profitable lines to seal the gaping hole was definitely a mistake!
Paul ottaviano
The union had tried to help yellow Corp with concessions over the past 15 years longest pay cut suspension of pension contributions yellow still lost money year after year but still rewarded management with bounses the company took 770 million dollars from the government where did that go mismanagement was its demise we as employees union and non union we all worked hard for this company they let us down not even a notice locked the gates behind us on our last shift many of us were there for 20/30 years