A Delaware bankruptcy court blessed the sale of 23 of bankrupt less-than-truckload carrier Yellow’s leased service centers on Friday. The second round of terminal sales will fetch $83 million, according to court filings.
A Dec. 20 filing with the court originally showed the results from the two-day auction that began on Dec. 18. The latest transactions were said to represent “the highest or otherwise best offer” for the assets.
A hearing scheduled for Friday was canceled as all objections to the sales had been resolved. In recent weeks, numerous landlords had filed objections with the court, claiming that cost-to-cure estimates provided by Yellow showed amounts much smaller than those actually due for repairs and back rent. Some of the property owners also wanted additional time to vet their new LTL tenants.
The first round of terminal sales included 130 terminals, most of which were owned, and raked in nearly $1.9 billion.
FedEx Freight (NYSE: FDX) was a newcomer to the proceedings with a winning bid for one terminal near Reno, Nevada, valued at $22.5 million. The nation’s largest LTL carrier undertook a plan last spring to unload 29 terminals, predominately in the Midwest, in efforts to right-size its national network.
The rest of the winning bids in the second auction were from five other carriers that were also active in the first round.
Estes had the largest bid at $35.3 million for five properties. It previously landed 24 terminals valued at $248.7 million.
Greenwood Motor Lines (R+L Carriers) won three terminals with a $9 million bid. It took home eight in the first round for $211.5 million through its real estate arm Ramar Land Corp.
The filing showed that Saia (NASDAQ: SAIA), ArcBest (NASDAQ: ARCB) and Knight-Swift (NYSE: KNX) will again add some of Yellow’s real estate to their networks.
Prior court filings showed the estate still needs to unwind 118 leased properties and 46 owned terminals. No update was provided on that auction process. In total, the estate has moved close to half of the company’s nonrolling stock at a price tag of nearly $2 billion.
A separate liquidation of Yellow’s 12,000 tractors and 35,000 trailers remains ongoing.
The court is expected to soon hear arguments regarding Yellow’s potential withdrawal liability claims from multiemployer pension funds that filings have shown could exceed $7 billion. However, bankruptcy experts have communicated to FreightWaves that the claims are likely to settle for just a fraction of that amount.
Other outstanding claims to the estate include more than 200 personal injury claims and payouts due, if any, for failure to timely comply with Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act guidelines.
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