Ritchie Bros industrial auction in Orlando sets record

FLORIDA(Scrap Monster): Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers (NYSE and TSX: RBA), popular industrial auctioneer, conducted the world's largest heavy equipment auction in Orlando, Florida in which total gross auction proceeds set record and went high up to more than US$203 million.

In the historic auction process, new records were set for number of lots sold (more than 10,000), total number of registered bidders (8,670), number of sellers (830), online gross auction proceeds (more than US$47 million) and number of online bidders (4,070).

Every item in the six-day auction was sold to the highest bidder regardless of price without minimum bids or reserve prices.

Peter Blake, Ritchie Bros. CEO said "In more than 50 years of business we have never held or seen an equipment auction of this magnitude, and we thank our customers and our staff for being part of this historic week. We begin 2012 confident that we're providing compelling solutions and value to the world's builders—our Orlando auction, our third industrial auction of the year, has set the stage for us to continue carrying out our mission."

More than 8,670 registered bidders from 88 countries participated in the auction both in-person and online. Items were sold for more than 830 sellers from across the United States and around the world.

Jr. Davis Construction Co., a local construction, excavation and road-building company based in Florida sold more than 60 heavy equipment items at the historic Orlando auction, including a selection of articulated dump trucks, wheel loaders, crawler tractors, hydraulic excavators, rollers, mixers, compactors and more.

Tom Mastera, Equipment Manager for Jr. Davis Construction Co commented, "We're excited to have formed part of this historic auction—if a record like this was going to be set, it had to be done at a Ritchie Bros. auction."