Trucking company Yellow officially filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Sunday evening.

In a press release, the nearly 100-year-old company declared it would start winding down operations due to its mounting debt load and failed negotiations with the Teamster Union.

The new bankruptcy filing puts over 30,000 workers’ jobs at risk and could make businesses such as Walmart, Home Depot, and various other manufacturers at risk for delays.

In 2020, Yellow took $700 million through the US government’s pandemic relief program but it appears the massive loan was not enough to save the failing company.

Reuters had these details to offer:

U.S. trucking firm Yellow Corp (YELL.O) filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Sunday and said it would wind down, after struggling with a mounting debt load and following tense contract negotiations with the Teamsters Union.

The nearly 100-year-old company’s bankruptcy filing puts about 30,000 workers at risk when the freight industry is already grappling with slumping volumes.

The company is a dominant player in the “less-than-truckload” segment that hauls cargo for multiple customers on a single truck.

Its clients include large retailers such as Walmart (WMT.N) and Home Depot (HD.N), manufacturers and Uber Freight. Some companies had paused shipments to Yellow on fears they could be lost or stranded if the trucking firm went bankrupt.

Prior to its demise, Yellow, one of the largest U.S. trucking companies, held roughly 8% to 10% of market share, per brokerage TD Cowen.

Yellow said on Sunday it intends to fully pay back a $700 million loan former President Donald Trump’s administration issued to bail out the long-troubled firm in 2020 under a pandemic relief program.

Per DNY UZ:

Three years after receiving a $700 million pandemic-era lifeline from the federal government, the struggling freight-trucking company Yellow is filing for bankruptcy.

After monthslong negotiations between Yellow’s management and the Teamsters union broke down, the company shut its operations late last month, and said on Sunday that it was seeking bankruptcy protection so it can wind down its business in an “orderly” way.

“It is with profound disappointment that Yellow announces that it is closing after nearly 100 years in business,” Yellow’s chief executive, Darren Hawkins, said in a statement. The company filed a so-called Chapter 11 petition in federal bankruptcy court in Delaware.

The downfall of the 99-year-old company will lead to the loss of 30,000 jobs and could have ripple effects across the nation’s supply chains. It also underscores the risks associated with government bailouts that are awarded during moments of economic panic.

Yellow, which formerly went by the name YRC Worldwide, received the $700 million loan during the summer of 2020 as the pandemic was paralyzing the U.S. economy. The loan was awarded as part of the $2.2 trillion pandemic-relief legislation that Congress passed that year, and Yellow received it on the grounds that its business was critical to national security because it shipped supplies to military bases.

 

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