Ritchie Bros.— New Equipment Buying and Selling Opportunities to Indian Subcontinent Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers

Interested in Buying Equipment?

If you are interested in buying trucks or equipment, have you ever thought of attending an unreserved auction? Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers is the world's largest industrial auctioneer, conducting over 150 unreserved auctions around the world. Buyers from around the world travel to Ritchie Bros. auctions due to the great selection of items and because every auction is truly unreserved –meaning the items sells to the highest bidder on auction day, regardless of price. There are no minimum or reserve prices and every item is sold by the end of auction day. Ritchie Bros. regularly holds over 150 auctions in Singapore, Dubai, Australia, Europe and in North America each year. Buyers can bid both in-person or online, using the Company's popular real-time internet bidding tool. If you need trucks and equipment now, it's the perfect way to purchase your item one day and put it to work the next.

Interested in Selling Equipment?

If you have trucks or equipment to sell, you need the concentrated buying power at Ritchie Bros. auctions. The Company attracts worldwide buyers to the sale of your equipment. There are over 400,000 customers in the Ritchie Bros. database that are interested in hearing about your auction sale. Turn the reigns over to Ritchie Bros. and sit back and relax, while the Company does all the marketing and selling of your assets for you.

The Auction Process

The Company's commitment to only holding unreserved auctions has helped Ritchie Bros. in becoming the world's largest industrial auctioneer. Because the Company guarantees that there are no reserves, no minimum bids, and no owner buy-backs, bidders know that they are only bidding against other legitimate bidders. Buyers can trust that they'll pay fair market price and every item is sold to the highest bidder. This feature compels buyers from around the world to participate in the company's auctions. By attracting serious bidders from beyond the local, regional, and international borders, Ritchie Bros. is able to transcend local market conditions and deliver a world market price.

Additionally, comprehensive services, which cover all consignment details, have also contributed to the Company's reputation for providing excellent customer service. Ritchie Bros. consignors (people who sell their equipment at Ritchie Bros. auctions) get more than a simple unreserved auction sale, they get the entire 'Ritchie Bros. package.' This can include inspection and appraisals, marketing, and advertising, suggesting, and overseeing repairs and refurbishing, searching for liens, conducting a professional auction sale and collecting sale day proceeds.

Each item that is sold is subject to a thorough evaluation. Ritchie Bros. may provide suggestions for repair and cleaning to ensure that sellers get the best price for their machines. Many of the Ritchie Bros. sites are equipped to perform the recommended pre-auction preparations on behalf of the seller. While all this equipment preparation is going on in the yard, all the administrative details for setting up the auction date and extensive advertising begins.

Ritchie Bros.' in-house Marketing Department uses a targeted direct-mail campaign to the appropriate buyers so they know about upcoming trucks and equipment for sale. Ritchie Bros. uses an extensive proprietary database of owners of trucks and equipment comprised of over 400,000 customers from over 190 countries.

Sellers can feel confident that interested buyers around the world have been informed about their equipment through advertisements placed in local, regional and international trade journals; equipment listings on the hightraffic rbauction.com web site; and through full-colour auction brochures sent to a selection of tens of thousands of customers for every unreserved industrial auction.

A Ritchie Bros. auction is an experience in itself. It is an entertaining, fast-paced affair. Equipment moves onto the ramp past a large, covered seating area where the bidders can participate in comfort, sheltered from weather. Stationary equipment is sold in the auction yard with the help of a mobile sound truck. All services including catering, security, and shuttle buses, are provided for the convenience of customers.

The auctioneers are experts at keeping up the fast pace of the auction. The bidding stops when the piece of equipment is sold. Bidders won't waste their time at a Ritchie Bros. auction. This energized pace encourages active bidding, with 60 to 100 items selling every hour.

The business of Ritchie Bros. is quite simple: the Company provides a global marketplace for both buyers and sellers of industrial equipment. Ritchie Bros. works with many equipment owners in all parts of the world. They can conduct an auction at any location. They'll advertise trucks and equipment around the world delivering global market prices, no matter where the auction is being held.

The Company's auctions truly are global events. At an average sale, more than half of the equipment leaves the region, even the country, where the auction is being held.

Ritchie Bros. did not become the world's largest auctioneer overnight. Only through the many years of auction experience have they come to define a first-class industrial auction. Continuous growth around the world allows the Company to broaden its scope and services to its customers. Ritchie Bros. has made industrial auctions well-known throughout the world. A steadfast commitment to quality service and the unreserved auction process has enabled Ritchie Bros. to earn an exceptional reputation.

Helpful Ritchie Bros. Tools Available to the Industry

Ritchie Bros. is constantly taking advantage of technologies that can improve its customer service. An example of this is the website at www.rbauction.com, which includes many helpful features.

Equipment items for all Ritchie Bros. auctions are updated daily on the website, often including multiple photos. The database has a simple search tool so that the latest equipment listings can be viewed quickly.

Historical selling prices are also available on the Ritchie Bros. website via their free rbauction Results service. A simple, free registration is all that is needed for access to selling prices from all Ritchie Bros. auctions in the last 24 months.

Since the service provides a unique look at fair market prices, as a result of the unreserved auction process and global participation, it has become immensely popular with auctiongoers and other industry members alike.

In addition, a service called FleetValuator allows fleet managers to maintain current valuations of their equipment, with very quick views of latest selling prices.

Another useful service on the Ritchie Bros. website is rbauctionBid, which allows customers who can't make it to the auction on sale day to bid via the internet, live and in real-time. It has now been available for a few years, and has also become very popular quickly, with many auctions selling 20% of total inventory to internet bidders.

Global Trends in Fleet Management

There have been many developments in fleet management strategies in mature markets, specifically in areas of competition, maximizing residual values and increasing global demand for good equipment. Thus, the auction business has become a fast and efficient channel for buying and selling equipment.

In order to stay cost competitive, large companies are selling their idle equipment rather than waiting between projects or keeping it past its useful life. Smaller firms are buying and selling their equipment more often, too; they are able to purchase used equipment with production value remaining and still realize a better return when their own used items are sold.

This tier system, where equipment flows faster from one owner to another and one industry to another, supports stronger residual values in equipment. Auctions facilitate this efficient flow of equipment between tiers, cross-industry, and geographically.

Stronger residual prices at auction help manufacturers realize stronger pricing. Financiers and contractors are also able to focus on what they do best with auctions available to them to manage their fleets or to enter and exit a market.

Auctions have also become an important part of an efficient global market. Many manufacturers–including those located in India–use Ritchie Bros. auctions as a means to launch and distribute their new equipment and make it accessible to thousands of buyers in a variety of industries around the world.

An Exciting New Presence in India Helps Many Sectors

As a part of its global growth strategy, Ritchie Bros. is focusing more efforts on the burgeoning market powers of the world, and India is no exception.

The Ritchie Bros. office in Delhi has been busy with many Indian asset managers, as they determine how they can best take advantage of the unique business opportunity that the auctioneers offer.

"We've been serving customers from the subcontinent for many years," said Stephen Branch, Divisional Manager for Ritchie Bros. "With our relatively young office in India, even more activity is heating up, and we look forward to helping them meet their business goals, whether as buyers or sellers."

The presence of the auctioneers helps people from several related industries for many reasons.

End users of equipment especially benefit from the source of quality machinery that can be purchased efficiently and transparently at Ritchie Bros. unreserved auctions, and then put to use without delay.

Dealers appreciate that they can use the auctioneer as an outlet for unsold machinery, or as an exit platform for items received as part of trade-in programs.

As elsewhere in the world, many Indian manufacturers are also finding the auctions useful as a channel for the global introduction of their products, by bringing new products directly to market through Ritchie Bros.

The financial sector is also very interested in an unreserved auction, which transcends local market fluctuations. For them it's an efficient way to turn idle assets into cash, often from lease returns, repossessions or bankruptcies. They can count on a fair market price with minimal effort, and do it in time for critical accounting periods, leaving them to concentrate on their core competencies.

Generally, everyone can benefit from the open trade method that the unreserved Ritchie Bros. auction presents – items move quickly and fairly from those who no longer need it to those who do.

Industrial Growth

Ritchie Bros. has traditionally held auctions with a conventional mix of construction equipment and trucks. Mixed into that there is often a varying representation of items from more specialized industries like aggregate, mining, pipeline, material handling, forestry, agriculture and even real estate.

This variety comes naturally as much of the support equipment is common for any of these industries and many others. Over the years, Ritchie Bros. has proven that it can properly market and attract active buyers from around the world for any type of asset, no matter how specialised.

Recently, the firm has been expanding its coverage more formally, and has added divisions dedicated to the auction of assets from agricultural, industrial marine, transportation, and real estate.

With the breadth of expertise across all these industries within its global team, Ritchie Bros. can ensure that it properly handles virtually any type of asset, and occasionally even holds auctions that focus on equipment from particular industries.