Ritchie Bros expands in Europe

Ritchie Bros held its first auction in Avignon, France, on 10 November and will return to Portugal for the first time in three years with an auction on Thursday 18 November in Tondela. The Tondela sale will be simultaneously broadcast at the Ritchie auction taking place on the same day in Ocana, near Madrid in Spain.

In the same week, Ritchie inaugurates a new auction site in Meppen, Germany, in the north west of the country.

The Portugal auction will see more than 270 items for sale, while the larger Ocana auction will have over 1200 items, including 35 all terrain cranes, +130 scissor lifts, +100 boom lifts, +25 excavators, 18 wheel loaders and many more items.

For the first time smaller items, for example, buckets and attachments, in the Ocana sale will be sold in a 'Timed Auction'. Ritchie said these are auctions where "bids can be placed online or at the auction site from the time bidding opens until bidding closes during the live auction. Every item is sold to the highest bidder when bidding closes, without minimum bids or reserves". Larger items and complete machines will be sold in a regular ramp auction.

At the first Avignon auction more than 240 heavy equipment items, tractors and trucks from around 50 equipment owners were sold. Ritchie already has an auction site at St Aubin Sur Gaillon, near Paris, where around five auctions are held every year.

In Germany, meanwhile, Ritchie inaugurates its new Meppen site with a two-day unreserved equipment auction on 18 and 19 November, 2010. An official opening ceremony will take place in the auction theatre on mid-morning on 18 November.

Ritchie has held agricultural auctions bi-annually in Meppen since 2004 in cooperation with Agravis, a German agricultural equipment dealer. Now the company has established its own +16 hectare site. The auction on 18-19 November will feature mainly agricultural equipment.