Consolidated Freightways' closed trucking terminal in Richfield, Ohio could reopen, with about half of its 500 workers back on the job, if a Texas-based investor group is successful in buying the company out of bankruptcy,
according to a story that appeared in Thursday's Akron Beacon Journal.
But first, the investors have to persuade Consolidated Freightway's board of directors, a bankruptcy judge and a group of creditors to agree to their plan.
The investors are offering $500 million for the 73-year-old trucking company, which shut down last month, throwing about 15,000 people out of work.
Frank Snell, a spokesman for the investor group based in Fort Worth, Texas, said in an interview Wednesday that the Richfield terminal would be one of 42 Consolidated locations "to be reopened immediately."
"We would like to do it tomorrow, but realistically, it could take several weeks or longer," the Journal reported Snell as saying.
About 40 locations would follow several months later, he said. The plan also calls for closing or selling an undisclosed number of locations that are not profitable or could be consolidated with other terminals. The company has 350 terminals and 30,000 trucks in North America.
The Richfield terminal and other major hubs could be staffed at about a 50% level, Snell said. Richfield serves as a hub for freight being trucked between Chicago and the East Coast.
The investors have created a new company, called Rollin' International, to buy and run the operation. Before it closed, Consolidated Freightways was the nation's third-largest less-than-truckload freight carrier.
Snell said he gave a presentation to a group of creditors Wednesday, but did not know whether they would agree to his plan.
"If the company and creditors don't at least give us a chance to activate our proposal, they're just as crazy as they were when they shut it down," he told the Journal.
Mike Brown, a spokesman for Vancouver, Wash.-based Consolidated Freightways, said Wednesday that Rollin' International is the only company that has stepped forward with a plan to buy the closed operation. Many other buyers have expressed interest in certain assets, such as trucks or buildings, he said.
Brown declined to offer an opinion on Rollin' International's plan.
The Teamsters union, based in Washington, D.C., said it is in active discussions with the investors. "Rollin' has indicated its interest in maintaining the unionized Teamster work force," said Phil Young, head of the Teamsters' freight operations. "While it's very early in the process, this is the best hope to get CF Teamsters' jobs back."
But some observers say the investors would have big challenges on their hands, such as winning back customers, forming a management team and reactivating even a part of the closed network.
"I wouldn't hold my breath that this is going to happen," said Ken Paff, an organizer with Teamsters for a Democratic Union in Detroit.
But Snell said the group has a detailed plan for putting the company back into operation quickly. It calls for retaining some of Consolidated's top management while bringing in an outside chief executive, whom the investors have not yet identified. It also calls for winning back customers, many of whom have already given their business to competitors.
"We have a definite strategy that we believe is very workable and will bring back the business that's profitable," Snell said."