XPO to buy dozens of bankrupt Yellow’s terminals for $870 million

Trucking and logistics giant XPO won a bid to acquire dozens of bankrupt Yellow’s terminals, according to a Tuesday morning report.

XPO will purchase 28 terminals from defunct Nashville-headquartered LTL carrier Yellow for $870 million following a Monday bankruptcy auction, according to court documents.

The XPO acquisition will include Yellow’s Carlisle, Pennsylvania, terminal, the Wall Street Journal reports.

XPO says they expect the acquisition of Yellow assets to add to the company’s core profit in 2024.

The purchase of the Yellow terminals remains subject to court approval.

The XPO purchase was the largest acquisition of Monday’s bankruptcy auction, which generated nearly $2 billion for about 130 Yellow properties.

Estes Express was the next largest buyer, purchasing 24 properties for $248 million.

Yellow filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in August 2023, permanently ending operations and laying off approximately 30,000 union and non-union workers.

Yellow was the nation’s third-largest LTL carrier, with 12,000 trucks and 35,000 trailers at the time of the bankruptcy filing. The failure of the 99 year old company was the largest in U.S. history.

Yellow blames the closure on the refusal of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) to agree to the “One Yellow” business plan. The One Yellow plan involved combining the operations of YRC Freight, Reddaway, Holland, and New Penn into a single carrier providing both regional and long haul services. The plan would have required the closing of some facilities and would have converted some drivers into “utility worker” positions that would require local driving and dock work.