A court-supervised sale raised $1.9 billion for about 130 properties, with dozens more sites still on the block reports Paul Berger of The Wall Street Journal. He writes:
Yellow is set to raise more than $2 billion after a bankruptcy auction that will disperse much of its national network of truck terminals among rivals, casting deeper doubt on a long shot bid to revive the trucker.
About a dozen trucking companies bought properties at a court-supervised auction that unloaded 75% of Yellow’s properties for a total of just under $1.9 billion, according to a filing Monday evening in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware. The bids must be approved by the court, which is scheduled to hold a hearing Dec. 12.
The remaining properties are expected to fetch hundreds of millions more and to be sold over the coming months, according to a person familiar with the process.
The sales pushed further out of reach a trucking group’s bid to revive Yellow as a smaller, leaner carrier and to rehire thousands of employees. The bid includes $1.1 billion in financing and asks creditors, including the federal government, to push back repayment of some debts and to accept equity in the new business.
Sarah Riggs Amico, the executive chair of auto carrier Jack Cooper Transport who is leading the bid, has said she hopes Yellow’s creditors will continue to consider the offer as they weigh the sums raised at auction. […]
The roughly 130 properties sold at the auction, which began last week, went to more than 20 buyers. About 90% of the terminals were sold to about a dozen LTL carriers.
XPO, currently the third-largest LTL carrier, won a bundle of 28 properties including one of Yellow’s most prized terminals in Carlisle, Pa., for a total of $870 million.
Estes Express Lines, the next biggest LTL carrier, which entered the auction with a stalking horse, or lead, bid of $1.525 billion for all of the Yellow properties, won 24 terminals for a combined $249 million.
Saia, a Johns Creek, Ga.-based trucker, won 17 properties with a bid of $236 million.
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