Auctioneers Holds Largest Single-Owner Farm Sale in Canada
Published March 28th, 2006
Press Release
Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers (TSX:RBA)(NYSE:RBA), the world’s largest industrial auctioneer, today announced that it conducted what it believes to be the largest single-owner unreserved agricultural auction ever held in Canada. The auction, held on Friday, March 24, took place near Stockholm, Saskatchewan (in the Yorkton area), and generated gross auction sales of more than CAD$7.7 million.
The large, unreserved farm and real estate dispersal auction was conducted for General Resources Inc. The auction included 83 quarter sections of land (one quarter section is 160 acres) and all the equipment needed to farm it, including tractors, combines and headers, swathers, trucks, trailers, grain handling and heavy duty equipment. As with all Ritchie Bros. auctions, everything was sold unreserved, meaning there were no minimums or reserve bids. Every item on sale day sold to the highest bidder, regardless of price.
“It was a tremendous sale,” said Kevin Tink, Vice President Agricultural Division for Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers. “I’ve been doing this for over twenty years and I’ve never seen anything like it. There were in excess of 3,000 people in attendance which is the largest agricultural crowd we’ve ever seen at an off-site sale (i.e. an auction held at a location other than a Ritchie Bros. permanent auction facility).”
More than 1,675 registered bidders from 11 U.S. states, seven Canadian provinces as well as Germany and Italy registered to bid on over 600 farm equipment items and real estate.
More than 270 internet bidders used the Company’s real-time bidding service, rbauctionBid-Live, to purchase CAD$599,500 worth of farm equipment and real estate. The internet participants were buyers or runner-up bidders on 17% of the lots available for online bidding.
“We also broke a company record for the most concurrent bidders and viewers watching an auction online at one time,” said Tink. “At one point, there were 747 people bidding or viewing the auction over the internet. Everyone was quite interested to see the 83 quarters of land sell, and the price on the real estate exceeded our expectations.”
There are currently over 29,000 truck and equipment items featured in more than 40 unreserved industrial and 100 agricultural auctions in the upcoming Ritchie Bros. auction calendar. On March 28, the Company is holding eight unreserved auctions in one day – a record number of auctions in one day for Ritchie Bros. Details on all upcoming Ritchie Bros. auctions, including equipment that will be sold, are available on www.rbauction.com.
