Offers totaling $192.5 million for some of Yellow Corp.’s real estate are before a federal bankruptcy court, according to a Tuesday filing. Privately held less-than-truckload carriers Estes and R+L Carriers are the named suitors.
The motion shows a $142.5 million purchase agreement from Estes for seven owned and four leased terminals. The larger owned properties to be acquired include a 216-door terminal in Cincinnati, a 198-door site near Chattanooga, Tennessee, 167 doors in Tracy, California and 136 doors in Hagerstown, Maryland.
The filing also showed Estes is acquiring owned terminals ranging from 67 to 80 doors in Omaha, Nebraska, and both Fort Wayne and Jeffersonville, Indiana (Louisville, Kentucky, market).
The leased properties include a 117-door terminal in Miami and 95 doors in Orange, California.
R+L is buying a 304-door terminal in Maybrook, New York, for $50 million.
The proposed offers stem from private negotiations conducted outside of the estate’s planned bid and auction process. The offers are said to be “fair and reasonable” and to “maximize the value of the Subject Properties.”
Estes initially backstopped Yellow’s (OTC: YELLQ) terminal sales more than a year ago with a $1.525 billion stalking horse bid.
A September court filing showed 112 terminals remained with initial indications of interest due by mid-October and an auction and sale process concluding as early as January. An updated sale process shows Jan. 6 as the bid deadline for the remaining sites with Jan. 13 to Jan. 15 as the auction period if needed.
The proceeds from the sales will go toward paying claims from pension funds, former employees and other creditors, totaling in the billions.
Major claims include roughly $5 billion in pension withdrawal liability, alleged to be triggered by the company’s early termination from various pension funds, and nearly $2.5 billion in Teamsters union claims saying Yellow was required to keep the collective bargaining agreement intact two years past the duration of its COVID-relief loan from the U.S. Treasury.
The estate repaid the Treasury loan in February. The 2020 loan’s terms originally extended through September 2024. The union says its members who worked at Yellow are due 61 weeks (from the July 2023 shutdown through September 2024) in backpay and benefits.
One proposed Chapter 11 plan for Yellow calls for just minimal recoveries to general unsecured creditors.
A separate Tuesday filing asked the court to enter an agreement between Yellow and Estes terminating the leases on three properties Yellow was renting from Estes.
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