Ritchie Bros. sells more than $166 million
Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers held the world's largest heavy equipment auction of 2014 in Orlando, Fla., selling 8,800 items for more than $166 million.
The six-day unreserved public auction set new company records for online sales, with online buyers generating more than $54 million in gross auction proceeds, or 33 percent of total gross auction proceeds. Additional records broken at the auction include number of online registered bidders (4,400), number of online buyers (1,000), and a new Orlando permanent auction site record of sellers (830). Every item in the six-day, unreserved public auction was sold to the highest bidder, regardless of price — without minimum bids or reserve prices.
"Our February auction continues to be our company's largest auction each year and this year is no different," said Peter Blake, Ritchie Bros. CEO. "Equipment owners from around the world and most notably from all across the eastern seaboard of the U.S. send their equipment to our Orlando auction because we provide ease, confidence and the world's biggest auction in which to sell their assets for the highest possible returns. Due to the severe winter weather that hit the northeastern U.S. in recent weeks, many of the sellers from the region who normally participate in the auction were unable to free up equipment from their job sites to add to last week's auction. We also noticed a lower volume of cranes in this year's inventory due to higher construction activity in the non-residential market. However, simultaneously we saw a more diverse and larger selection of equipment from the energy and transportation equipment categories than previous years. This is an early reflection of our focused strategy to diversify and grow our volume in other sectors, in addition to heavy construction."
More than 8,640 registered bidders from 84 countries, including all 50 U.S. states, all 10 Canadian provinces and one territory, participated both in person and online. More than $29 million was purchased by buyers from the state of Florida while more than $137 million (or 82 percent) was sold to buyers located outside the state, with more than $48 million (or 29 percent) being sold to buyers outside the country. Buyers participated from as far away as the United Arab Emirates, Guyana, Italy, Nigeria, Russia and Qatar.
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