More than half of the bidders at the Ritchie Bros auction at Donington Park on 12th July were from overseas, either attending in person or bidding online.
Organisers attribute the high international interest to the fall in the value of the GB pound, which has dropped from close to US $1.50 to around $1.30 this year. Against the Euro the pound has fallen from €1.36 at the start of the year to €1.19 last week.
The Donington Park auction had more than 1,600 lots including excavators, loaders, dozers, access platforms, trucks, tractors, attachments and more, with each item taking just 60 seconds to sell.
A buyer from Germany bought a Metso LT1110 Lokotrack crawler impact crusher for £97,500 and a buyer form the UAE bought a JLG 1350SJP boom lift for £72,000. But UK buyers got a look in too, with one landing a Komatsu PC360LC-10 hydraulic excavator for £77,000.
Rupert Craven, Ritchie Bros sales director for UK & Ireland, said: “We saw over a thousand bidders joining the auction, both in person and via internet. This included 450 bidders from the UK and the rest from 68 other countries around the world. Compared to our auction in May, roughly 10% more bidders from outside the UK became successful and purchased equipment at this auction. The exchange rate gives bidders from the Eurozone definitely more buying power than before.”
Besides the UK, dominant bidder countries at the auction were Poland, the Netherlands, Ireland and Germany. There were also buyers from the USA, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand and elsewhere.
Ritchie Bros will hold its next auction at Donington Park on 27th September 2016.
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