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Seven more of Yellow’s terminals have a new home as the bankrupt less-than-truckload (LTL) carrier keeps selling off bits and pieces of its real estate portfolio.
Knight-Swift Transportation paid $9.9 million for three California-based terminals in San Diego, Downey and Santa Maria, as well as a facility in Roanoke, Va. A. Duie Pyle paid $4.5 million for terminals in Bowling Green, Ohio, and Charleston, W.Va. And TFI International forked over $700,000 for a terminal in Fayetteville, N.C.
All seven of the terminals were leased, selling for a combined $15.1 million. Court approval of the deals was sought Feb. 11.
Yellow’s estate has sold more than 170 terminals for more than $2.2 billion since the liquidation first began.
Two separate auctions were held in late 2023, generating $1.88 billion and $82.9 million for the estate through the sale of 130 and 23 of Yellow’s owned and leased terminals, respectively.
Yellow is expected to host a third auction for its remaining real estate by the end of February, but trucking firms have pounced on some facilities early.
Estes and R&L Carriers purchased 12 terminals for a combined $192.5 million in stand-alone deals in December. R+L Carriers and Central Transport than bought a combined four properties for a combined $56.5 million the next month.
Knight-Swift is the largest truckload operator in the U.S., generating $5 billion in truckload revenue in 2024. After entering the LTL market in 2021, the company has continually expanded its presence in the segment, especially upon Yellow’s exit from the field. The company bought 13 of Yellow’s terminals for a combined $51.3 million in its first real estate auction.
“While the past 18 months have been a period of significant investment to expand our network, the focus in 2025 will pivot to growing shipment count to drive margin expansion through revenue growth, freight mix upgrades, operational efficiency gains and better cost absorption while maintaining price discipline,” said Knight-Swift CEO Adam Miller in a January earnings call. “We will continue to be opportunistic regarding organic and inorganic opportunities to grow our network and business where the strategic fit is right, but we expect to be more selective in 2025.”
Miller also said in the call that the trucking firm sees an opportunity to “maintain disciplined pricing and grow the volume that we need to really start to gain some traction and to start to optimize some of these new terminals that we’ve opened up.”
XPO, one of Yellow’s former top LTL competitors, sold off a service center in Queens, N.Y. in December to make room for one of the 28 terminals it gobbled up for $870 million in the first auction.
The LTL carrier sold the service center to Terreno Realty Corp. for $50.1 million as it relocated to the larger, formerly Yellow-operated site in Brooklyn.
According to Kyle Wismans, chief financial officer at XPO, the company plans to make similar movements elsewhere in its network, exiting older facilities in favor of centers acquired from Yellow.
“This is part of the overall plan that we had when we acquired the sites at the end of 2023. A little less than half of those sites we acquired are going to be net adds,” Wismans said. “So there are going to be some service centers we’re going to exit. And from those, some are leased properties, we’re going to let those roll off or we’ll sublease at favorable terms.”
Yellow’s long-shot bidder shuts down
In an ironic twist of fate, one company that had scrambled to pull together a long–shot bid to acquire Yellow out of bankruptcy in late 2023 is going under.
Fleet management company and auto hauler Jack Cooper Transport will shut down after 97 years in operation after losing relationships with two of its top customers: Ford Motor and General Motors.
“Given the loss of our Ford revenue and General Motors’ unilateral decision, Jack Cooper’s management and Board of Directors are faced with no choice but to ask that our employees not return to work, unless contacted by management,” said CEO Sarah Amico in a letter to employees.
The auto hauler’s potential rescue bid for Yellow was scrutinized in the industry namely since it didn’t appear to make sense on multiple fronts. For one, the company transported automobiles, not freight. Shippers were also unlikely to bring their business back to the LTL after it already went bankrupt. Like Yellow, Jack Cooper filed for bankruptcy in 2019. Additionally, the company was likely too small to buy Yellow’s terminals and would have needed significant financing from other parties.
Yellow Corp. ceased operations on July 30, 2023 before filing for bankruptcy just a week later.
