Dive Brief:
- Yellow Corp. will liquidate its equipment with the help of Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers and Nations Capital.
- A federal bankruptcy court approved an agreement last month for the auctioneers to sell the shuttered company’s roughly 60,000 trucks, trailers and other rolling stock. The fees negotiated with the companies were not disclosed.
- "The historic size and complexity of this transaction required a highly coordinated effort between the teams at NCI, Ritchie Bros. and [Yellow],” NCI EVP Jim Burke said in a statement. “Together with Ritchie Bros., we are prepared to lead one of the largest disposition events in our industry."
Dive Insight:
Before going belly up, Yellow spent millions of dollars from a 2020 federal COVID relief loan on trucks.
Many of those purchases replaced older models that had been causing the fleet’s overall age to creep up. But if the orders were all delivered, about 950 of Yellow’s trailers and 300 of its tractors should be under 4 years old.
The auctioneers will use a multi-faceted sales strategy of private treaty and strategic bulk sales, as well as live and fully digital formats “to maximize the value of the trucks and trailers throughout 2024,” the companies said.
Ritchie Bros. and Nations Capital will manage the relocation, transportation, refurbishment, inventory, storage and sale of the equipment across more than 300 terminals in the U.S. and Canada.
The auction houses agreed to provide free storage, a $10 million sweetener Estes Express Lines also offered as part of its $1.525 billion stalking horse offer for the terminals.
The fate of the nearly 170 terminals is set to be decided in a court-supervised auction Nov. 28. Estes, Old Dominion Freight Line and ABF Freight are among those who have expressed interest or bid on the properties.
