Yellow Corp.

The liquidation of Yellow Corp., once the largest less-than-truckload (LTL) and the nation’s 13th-largest trucking company when it ceased operations last August, has continued to prove that Yellow’s assets were valuable even without operating as a functioning trucking company.  

It’s hardly much consolation to its 30,000 or so former workers—or shippers left without Yellow’s reliable capacity for 49,000 less-than-truckload (LTL) shipments a day—but Yellow says it has repaid in full a $700 million loan approved for the struggling trucker in the final days of the Trump administration.

Shippers are the main beneficiaries of new freight audit and payment data. They’re now tapping into more auxiliary services such as freight bidding, modal analysis and international services—and the most savvy operations are benefiting by realizing lower, better-managed freight bills with analysis thrown in for good measure

About a dozen trucking companies bought properties at a court-supervised auction that resold about three-fourths of Yellow’s properties for a total of just under $1.9 billion.

In an annual tradition, LM takes a look at the top news in logistics and supply chain posted in the last year on Logistics Management. The editorial team presents the top 10 logistics stories of 2023.

Rapidly diversifying truckload carriers are riding out a slump in long-haul ground freight. These “durable, diversified, and resilient” plans are paying off for those TL carriers willing to change with the economic headwinds facing the sector.

A bankruptcy court in Delaware has approved plans by the administrators of bankrupt less-than-truckload (LTL) carrier Yellow Corp. to use auctioneers to sell the company’s rolling stock. Yellow filed for bankruptcy on Aug. 6 and ceased operations as the nation’s 13th-largest overall trucking company and third-largest LTL operator.

With the dust settling from the exit of Yellow Corp. in the less-than-truckload (LTL) market, following its Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection filing earlier this month, various industry stakeholders have taken time since then to assess what Yellow’s departure, as well as its 8%-to-9% sector market share, means for LTL and the freight transportation sector, too.

In this podcast, Jeff Berman, Group News Editor for Logistics Management and the Peerless Media Supply Chain Group, interviews Glenn Koepke, GM, Network Collaboration, for Chicago-based FourKites, a provider of real-time tracking and visibility solutions across transportation modes and digital platforms.

Yellow Corp. made it official Monday. It didn’t need a Teamsters’ strike to enter bankruptcy. In its 100th year, Yellow did it completely on its own.

Yellow, which had $5.24 million revenue in the $58 billion less-than-truckload (LTL) market, told the union it was formally declaring bankruptcy.

While it has yet to be confirmed by the company itself, the future of Nashville-based Yellow Corporation, the third-largest United States less-than-truckload (LTL) carrier, with about 8% of the national market, looks bleak, according to various reports. A Wall Street Journal article published this week indicated that Yellow “is preparing to file for bankruptcy,” citing “people familiar with the matter,” adding that it increases the possibility of Yellow shutting down, “as customers abandon it amid a cash crunch and union negotiations.”

A potentially company-ending strike at Yellow Corp. was averted when the union says its Central States Health and Welfare Fund agreed Sunday to extend health care benefits for workers at Yellow subsidiaries YRC Freight and Holland.

Yellow Corp. is withholding approximately $50 million in pension contributions to the Teamsters Central States pension fund because it says Teamsters’ leadership is causing “obstruction” to the company’s major change of operations. That is causing what Yellow calls a “liquidity crisis” and the need to implement cash-conservation measures, including its benefit funding deferral request.

With the possibility of Nashville-based Yellow Corporation, the third-largest United States less-than-truckload (LTL) carrier, with about 8% of the national market, going on strike ostensibly gaining traction, the company yesterday addressed comments made by the Teamsters yesterday about the company’s employee pensions through the Central States Pension Fund.