XPO, Estes, Saia among big winners in auction sale of ex-Yellow terminals; ODFL sitting it out

The dismantling of terminals previously operated by defunct less-than-truckload (LTL) carrier Yellow has resulted in a shifting of the LTL footprints of some former rivals in the $58 billion sector.

About a dozen trucking companies bought properties at a court-supervised auction that resold about three-fourths of Yellow’s properties for a total of just under $1.9 billion.

The Delaware court recently approved the sale of Yellow’s 12,000 tractors and 35,000 trailers through auction houses. That liquidation remains ongoing.

XPO, the fourth-largest LTL carrier with $4.6 billion in revenue last year, has been provisionally named the new owner of 28 service centers that were previously operated by Yellow. XPO bought 26 Owned Real Properties and two Leased Real Properties for $870 million on the first day of Yellow’s terminal auction.

Notably absent from the list of LTL rivals who won properties on the first day of auction was market leader Old Dominion Freight Line (ODFL), which at one time was the “stalking horse” auction leader.

The first day of the auction netted nearly $1.9 billion in commitments for 130 of Yellow’s owned properties, according to a filing in a Delaware bankruptcy court.

There are still 46 owned terminals and some leased properties that remain to be sold. The process will continue until Dec. 12.

Besides XPO’s $870 million offer for 28 former Yellow terminals, the bankruptcy court listed the following offers for Yellow’s terminals:

• Estes Express Lines, 24 terminals, $248.7 million;
• Saia Motor Freight Line, 17 terminals, $235.7 million;
• RAMAR Land Corp., eight terminals, $211.5 million; 
• Terminal Properties, LLC, seven terminals, $83.7 million; 
• Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings Inc., 13 terminals, $51.3 million; 
• Crown Enterprises, eight terminals, $38.2 million; 
• ArcBest Property Management, three terminals, $30.2 million; 
• A. Duie Pyle Inc., four terminals, $29.4 million; 
• RLF IV Acquisitions, three terminals, $20.9 million; 
• TForce Properties Inc., two terminals, $15.9 million; 
• GPSS Holdings, LLC, one terminal, $9.8 million; 
• Southeast Consolidators Inc., one terminal, $8.5 million; 
• Skylark Logistics Inc., two terminals, $7.9 million; 
• United Holding Group Inc., two terminals, $4.7 million; 
• Z Brothers Trucking LLC, one terminal, $4.2 million; 
• JIOS Fund I Acquisitions, LLC, one terminal, $3 million; 
• Royal Group Holdings Inc., one terminal, $2.9 million; 
• MDHE Enterprises LLC, one terminal, $2.8 million;  and
• Unis, LLC two terminals, $2.4 million

Liquidation of Yellow’s hard assets should end the well-publicized pipedream of it being somehow revived out of bankruptcy. A car hauler, Jack Cooper Transport, which had been in bankruptcy earlier this century, had floated a rescue plan to revive Yellow. But that dream evaporated with sales of Yellow’s assets.