Yellow Corp. has received an offer from rival less-than-truckload giant Estes Express Lines that would fund its short-term efforts to wind down its operations via Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. An attorney for Nashville-based Yellow, which was No. 6 on the 2023 for-hire FleetOwner 500, said on Aug. 11 that the Estes Express “financing proposal [had] continued to gel” late last week.
Richmond, Virginia-based Estes Express (No. 11 on the for-hire FleetOwner 500) surfaced earlier last week as a possible source of so-called debtor-in-possession (DIP) funding for Yellow, which filed for protection from its creditors on Aug. 6 and is looking to sell off its equipment and real estate in the next two months. Yellow has an estimated $1.5 billion in debt, but its assets to sell are substantial: 12,700 tractors (about 1,000 of them leased) as well as 42,000 trailers (of which 7,200 are leased), 169 terminals, and six warehouses run by its Yellow Logistics subsidiary. And the entry of rival Estes Express as a financial backer has introduced complications and interest in the fate of Yellow’s holdings.
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Yellow executives and their attorneys have said since filing Chapter 11