Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers conducted their first six-day auction Feb. 16-21 at the company's newly expanded, 200-acre permanent auction site in Orlando, Fla.


The unreserved public auction attracted more than 7,600 registered bidders, both in-person and online, from 75 countries. More than 8,300 lots were sold, generating $184 million in gross auction proceeds.

The auction broke several Orlando site records, including: the most bidder registrations; the most auction lots sold; and the highest number of consignors (more than 550). The auction also broke the company-wide record for the most selling days in a single auction.

"Adding another 35 developed acres to our Orlando facility allowed us to sell a much larger and broader selection of items than we did last year, which enabled us to add a sixth day to our auction sale," said Gary Seybold, divisional manager for Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers. "With the additional land, we were able to add more auction lots to the sale, which broadened the mix of equipment and offered a greater selection of equipment across all categories to our buying customers."

Online bidders purchased more than $36 million of trucks and equipment and were winner or runner up bidder on 27 percent of the lots available online. There were 550 internet buyers.

More than $154 million was sold to buyers located outside the state of Florida and more than $61 million was sold to buyers outside the United States.

"Prices at our Orlando unreserved auction were holding steady and were generally above the prices we were seeing in the fourth quarter of 2008," said Peter Blake, CEO of Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers. "We feel there are a number of reasons for this, including the fact that we saw a high number of international buyers participating, as we always do at the February Orlando auction. More than $21 million of equipment was sold to buyers in Central and South America, close to $20 million of equipment was sold to Canada, more than $6 million was sold to Mexico, and close to $4 million was sold to the Middle East.

"This auction had a much larger and more diverse mix of equipment than we've seen in February auctions in Orlando in the last few years, including more smaller lots, which had a meaningful effect on the average value per lot for this auction."

At the Orlando auction, Ritchie Bros. rolled out its new online shipping service to its customers, in partnership with uShip.com. The new service allows the company's on-site and online buyers to list their new purchases at any auction and obtain competitive bids for transportation.