YELLOW REJECTS BID TO RESTART COMPANY

Yellow, the trucking company that shut down its operations and filed for bankruptcy protection this summer, on Wednesday rejected a trucking executive’s bid to buy and restructure its business.

In a letter sent to the prospective buyer, Yellow’s lawyers contended that the bid was “not viable,” saying they had not gotten any indication that the bid had the support of the company’s creditors, including the Treasury Department, which had made an emergency loan to the company during the pandemic.

The letter, a copy of which was reviewed by The New York Times on Thursday, also said the plan to revive Yellow underestimated the costs and difficulties of such an effort. The bid would not be “confirmable by a bankruptcy court or in the best interests of Yellow’s stakeholders,” the letter said.

Yellow’s management intends to soon complete its own bankruptcy plan, which involves selling off the company’s assets to different buyers. The company this week released the results of an auction in which the winning bidders committed to spend nearly $1.9 billion on 128 terminals, its most valuable assets. On Tuesday, Yellow plans to seek approval for the sales from a federal bankruptcy judge in Delaware.

The letter is a blow to the bid led by Sarah Riggs Amico, executive chair of the auto hauling trucking company Jack Cooper, who proposed taking over and reviving Yellow. Her plan has the backing of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the union that represented most of Yellow’s employees. She had intended to hire back many of those workers and streamline the company’s operations.