As the shock begins to wear off following Monday's announcement of the impending demise of
regional less-than-truckload (LTL) carrier New England Motor Freight, Inc., (NEMF), LTL carriers serving the country's most densely
populated regions have begun to adjust to life without it.
There is no shortage of carriers in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic that NEMF called home for nearly 42 years. At this time, one
would be hard-pressed to find a carrier not being inundated with phone calls and e-mails from NEMF customers blindsided by the
stunning disclosure that the carrier and 10 related entities would file for bankruptcy and wind down the business. With about $400
million in annual revenue, NEMF and its companies will represent the largest U.S. trucking shutdown since Consolidated Freightways, Inc.
went out of business in the fall of 2002.
For example, executives at A. Duie Pyle, an LTL staple in the Northeast, couldn't respond yesterday to a reporter's inquiries
about the fallout because they were too busy fielding requests from NEMF customers, as well as its own, according to a spokeswoman
for the West Chester, Pennsylvania-based company.
Todd Polen, vice president of pricing for Thomasville, N.C.-based Old Dominion Freight Line, Inc. (NASDAQ:
ODFL), said Old Dominion has seen a huge spike in inquiries
from NEMF customers. All incumbent carriers are "scrambling" to keep up with requests, Polen added.
The NEMF bankruptcy will lead to tightening capacity across the board, but that it will be especially scarce for businesses
needing overnight deliveries within the region, according to John Luciani, Pyle's COO of LTL Services, said in an e-mail today.
"There is enough capacity to assimilate all of the Northeast volume [of NEMF], but service expectation will dictate mode and
costs," Luciani said.
XPO Logistics Inc., (NYSE: XPO), which
operates one of the largest LTL carriers in the country, said the LTL business is seeing significant across-the-board cost
increases. At the same time, current customers are interested in expanding their relationships with the company, and drivers and
service center operators are beginning to inquire about job opportunities, the Greenwich, Conn-based company said. All these trends
were in place well before the NEMF bankruptcy filing, XPO said.
LTL carriers are a resilient bunch, and have rebounded from many hammer blows over the past 10 years. This, too, shall pass,
said Polen, who added that Old Dominion Freight Line (NASDAQ: ODFL) has enough capacity to absorb diverted traffic. "Major shippers have already
made routing changes to us and (to) our competitors, as you would expect," Polen said.
Yet he acknowledged that the unexpected volumes cascading into an undersupplied market will make it "tight for a while for all
of us due to this."
UPS Freight, the LTL arm of Atlanta-based UPS Inc. (NYSE: UPS), also has sufficient capacity to handle diversions. However, a UPS spokesman
said UPS Freight will be very selective about accepting new freight, and its top priority will be to serve its existing customer
base.
The NEMF filing is considered a "Chapter 11 liquidation," according to Brent Wm. Primus, a long-time transportation attorney.
The path chosen by NEMF is different than a typical Chapter 11 filing which will lays the groundwork for a reorganization. Primus
added that the NEMF is pursuing a more deliberate process than a "Chapter 7" liquidation, in which a trustee is immediately
appointed, examines the entity's books, and oversees an asset liquidation with the proceeds then distributed to creditors.
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In its February 11 filing, NEMF said it expects to deliver all remaining freight from its 35 terminals (previous reports pegged
the terminal network at 40) within one to three weeks of the filing date. About 90 percent of the company's 3,540 full and
part-time employees – 1,900 of those being union workers – will be terminated within three weeks of the filing date, according to
the filing document. The remaining workforce will oversee what will be left of the wind-down process, the company said.
Included in that employee roster are about 1,300 drivers. Jeff Tucker, CEO of broker and 3PL Tucker Co. Worldwide, said those
drivers will be "coveted" by a marketplace in need of them. However, some may need to transition to driving for truckload
operations or another form of delivery, Tucker said. It may be difficult for LTL carriers to assimilate so many drivers at one
time, he said.
In the filing, NEMF painted a picture of a company that had struggled in recent years, but whose fortunes took a dramatic
downward turn in late 2018 due to the loss of several unidentified key accounts, a shortage of qualified drivers, a new labor
contract that contained "onerous" retroactive terms, an aging fleet that was costly to maintain, and tough competition from
non-union carriers.
The final straws were the unwillingness of five NEMF lenders holding the company's 13 letters of credit to renew or restructure
the obligations on terms acceptable to NEMF and the related companies, and the corporation's 2018 financial performance and 2019
outlook. The lenders' decisions were based on the company's ongoing losses and liquidity problems; efforts to consolidate the
letters of credit also proved unsuccessful, NEMF said.
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At around the same time, NEMF experienced an $8.4 million operating loss in the fourth quarter and a $20.9 million operating
loss for 2018, while the entire organization had only $1.5 million in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and
amortization (EBITDA). The pain was expected to get worse in 2019, according to the filing. The organization projected an operating
loss of more than $24 million, and had more than $19 million in debt service obligations coming due.
With worsening fundamentals, shallow liquidity and no lender lifeline, Vincent Colistra, who NEMF hired in December to help with
its debt consolidation and restructuring efforts, said he had no choice but to recommend a Chapter 11 filing followed by an
"orderly" wind-down of the Elizabeth, New Jersey-based company's operations. Until that point, the hopes were for either an
out-of-court restructuring or a reorganization under the bankruptcy laws, Colistra said.
Colistra made his recommendation to the NEMF board on January 30. On February 11, NEMF and the companies agreed in principle
with the International Association of Machinists, the union representing its workers, on a severance package for the
terminated rank-and-file. Later that afternoon, the company went public with its plans to file for bankruptcy and close up
shop.
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