YRC Worldwide: IBT Leaders Vote To Move Forward With Employee Ratification Vote

(RTTNews) - YRC Worldwide Inc. (YRCW) announced that it is continuing to execute on its plan to refinance its capital structure by successfully achieving yet another milestone.

The company noted that the affirmative vote from local IBT leaders allows the company to begin the ratification process by which the company is seeking to extend the current MOU or Memorandum of Understanding to March 31, 2019, gain additional operating flexibilities in areas such as the increased use of purchased transportation and utility employees, among others, and allows the firm to move forward with the company's effort to refinance the company's balance sheet.

YRC Worldwide CEO James Welch said that the company's proposed agreement will not cut current wages of existing employees or reduce their health and pension contributions, which were important considerations as the company designed the proposal to cut costs and improve service in this competitive industry environment.

Savings from the proposed agreement and other corporate initiatives are forecasted to be approximately $100 million per annum; the majority of which would have been realized if the agreement would have been in place at the beginning of 2013.

"The effectiveness of ratification is conditioned on the company receiving a majority vote to adopt the proposed agreement from the bargaining unit employees and retiring at least 90% of the outstanding Series A and B Notes through a range of potentially deleveraging options. The effectiveness is also conditioned on the company making reasonable efforts to refinance the existing Credit Agreement and ABL facility on terms that are better than those that are currently in place. We have been working in earnest with both Credit Suisse and MAEVA to those ends" said YRC Worldwide CFO Jamie Pierson.

The company anticipates that the ratification process will be completed on January 8, 2014 and expects the IBT will announce results soon thereafter.