The recent sale at the Euro Auctions flagship sale site in Leeds, showed a solid £42 million hammer total, as smashing the record for the greatest number of excavators ever sold at a Euro Auctions sale with 769 machines going over the ramp
Market confidence was still high at the recent four-day sale at Europe’s largest auction site in Leeds with 5000+ lots going over the ramp. With a hammer total of just over £42m this sale was a staggering 25% up on the same sale in August 2021, showing confidence in the auction process, and sellers realising strong prices with lots of fresh kit in the sale which pleased buyers.
The floor total for the sale was just over £12m with online sales being £30m representing 71% of the total sale, and the total for the timed-ring auction being £600,000. Registered vendors for the sale numbered 531, from 22 countries, with over 11% of buyers being first-timers and new to Euro Auctions. In addition, at this sale, the numbers of lots on sale were 10% over the same sale in August 2021, with the average lot price up by 25%
Market Trends
Chris Osborne, Sales Manager at Euro Auctions comments on the August 2022 sale: “Leeds has now firmly established itself as the premiere auction site in Europe for construction plant, agricultural machinery, and industrial equipment. Repeatedly Euro Auctions is able to and bring to market over 5,500 lots at each Leeds sale and we continue to consign good fresh, late, low hours equipment, and multiple compliments of ‘new to 48-month-old’ machines. The equipment is out there, and the sales managers at Euro Auctions are finding it!
“With high demand from the market, prices were strong at this August 2022 sale, and over the same auction 12 months ago demand was higher, prices were better, the levels of stock for sale were greater and demand from around the world was more evident.
“Very fresh low hour machines, e.g. less than 2 years old and up to 2,000 hours are achieving particularly strong prices right now and are the closest alternative to new equipment, as certain models are still unavailable. This is a great opportunity for Euro Auctions customers globally to buy really good kit that normally they would not have access to.
“Articulated dump trucks are also in particularly high demand right now. There is a shortage of trucks globally, with very long lead times for new models, particularly from Cat and Volvo, so again, prices are strong now for fresh low hours models. We saw that with the 2019 Cat 730’s and the 2019 Volvo A30G that made fantastic money for the sellers. The theme was the same with older trucks throughout the range still achieving higher prices than we had anticipated. Excavators of all models were also in high demand, and we had good stock across all makes and models.
Underlying Reasons
“Looking at the market as a whole there were reasons for the results of this sale. With the market starved of new stock over the last 24 months, production from OEMs is moving again with brand-new machines now coming out of the dealerships fulfilling orders. We had 769 excavators at this sale, which is an all-time record. Many of these machines will have been entered into the auction by a consignor taking delivery of new stock, or dealers that took these machines in as part exchange.
“We are delighted that so many businesses in the UK have faith in Euro Auctions to maximise the return for their used equipment through our simple but very effective auction process.
“Talking to a number of plant hire customers, we are hearing that fleet utilisation figures which have been particularly high over the last 2 years are starting to reduce a little, this is nothing excessive but just dropping back to pre-pandemic kind of numbers. Many large national fleets have been running at 95% utilisation for the last couple of years and are now seeing this drop back to perhaps 80-85% which historically was more normal. Now with prices strong in the market, and auctions selling well, operators are turning to Euro Auctions, taking off-hired machines, putting them over the ramp and converting dead stock into cash.
“With the high utilisation figures many businesses have grown their fleets over the last couple of years. Now as they take delivery of new machines, when they can get hold of them and, not selling their existing units as they usually would have, there is excess stock in the market. With the current slight slowdown and reduced utilisation, this is allowing our customers the chance to re-adjust their fleet profile. I am seeing many of them turning their inventories of plant and machinery into cash through Euro Auctions and putting that money back into their businesses. This is a smart way to raise capital right now. With prices strong, sellers are paid out quickly, stock is holding its value and when operators want to buy new machinery, we have great choices of makes, models, and types and can help them to re-stock.
Recession
“We cannot ignore the ‘R’ word and many in the industry are talking about recession. With interest rates rising, with the cost of raw materials set to rise, with cautiousness in the market, the auction is still a sure way for businesses to liquidate assets, and to be able to turn ‘iron-into-cash’.
“With our global network of buyers Euro Auctions markets hard into those countries where specific equipment and machinery is required for particular projects. We now offer vendors multiple options when selling a piece of plant or machinery, including physical sales, online sales, the 24 Hour Marketplace, and offsite sales dedicated to a large consignment of machinery from a single vendor.”
“Finally, back to this August sale: there were many gems making very good money. Articulated dump trucks stood out as making particularly strong money across the board, with mini diggers also strong.”
