Leeds - January auction sets an early benchmark

Market confidence continues to soar in the used construction and agricultural machinery markets at Euro Auctions January 2023 auction produces a £44.4 million sale hammer despite the current economy. Euro Auction, Leeds proves to be the auction site that ‘just keeps on giving’ regardless of market forces.

With 547 vendors from 22 countries consigning equipment to this sale, it was the home nation that ruled this auction, with 480 sellers coming from the UK. In all 5,432 lots went over the ramp, with a hammer total of £44.4 making this sale 13% up on the previous sale in November / December (when 4,509 lots achieved a hammer total of £38.9 million). That is a remarkable achievement, as in just short of 8-weeks, including Christmas, Euro Auctions has cleared the Leeds yard and re-stocked to capacity to nearly 5,500 pieces of heavy construction and agricultural machinery and commercial vehicles. An astonishing feat!

With almost 5,000 bidders registering to take part in this sale, this was the most registrations at any Euro Auctions sale anywhere, of which 831 of those registrations were bidding for the first time. There were 1,223 buyers at this sale of which 76% of all sales were transacted via the internet. Europe was the big buying region with 50% of the sales total going to Europe. 44% to UK based buyers with the rest of the world making up the remainder.

Sales Manager - Market Viewpoint & 'Top Picks'

Chris Osborne, Sales Manager at Euro Auctions comments on the January 2023 sale:

Europe’s #1

“Euro Auctions, Leeds, is now without doubt the number one auction site in Europe for construction plant, agricultural machinery, and industrial equipment. Whilst we have always believed this, our customers are re-affirming this at each and every sale. As such, this permeates out to all the other sales we operate in Europe, Middle East and Australia. Our customers like how we operate, the fact we are still a family run business is appealing to all, whilst our openness and honesty with buyers and sellers is refreshing. So many of our clients within various industries rely on Euro Auctions as a crucial part of their business model. They know there is another sale in the near future where we can offer their equipment to our huge global following of buyers, allowing them to achieve the maximum return for their assets as efficiently as possible.”

A Strong Sale

“Historically January has always proved to be a strong sale in Leeds, with the number of lots for sale, the sales prices achieved and the quality and choice of machines available being one of the highest for the year. Even with so much talk of market uncertainty Euro Auctions pulled out another show stopping January sale. We had the highest number of bidders ever, with a noticeably huge volume of floor bidders across the 3 live days. Even compared to pre-Covid times, both auction rings were completely packed out for the duration of the sale week. We consistently see in excess of 700 new bidders register for each Leeds auction and this has been the case for a number of years. As you can imagine the constant addition of active buyers to our established global customer base means that we can consistently get the results we do, selling £45m of equipment every 6 weeks or so. Without having that pool of global buyers, the sheer scale of what we do just wouldn’t be possible.”

Trusted

“Since the retraction of the Ritchie Bros. takeover bid in March 2022 to acquire Euro Auctions, the business at Leeds has really stepped up to another level. The sales managers, not just in the UK, but globally, are now being offered more stock for each sale than ever before. Regardless of market highs and lows, the consistent theme is that we are filling this Leeds yard every 6 weeks with an unmatched choice of equipment to suit all buyers. Euro Auctions is trusted to return the best price for our consignors, whilst sourcing and presenting for sale, the best choice of equipment in every category, from new, to fresh, late low hours machines. Presenting such a vast choice of equipment and making the buying process so simple, our customers return time after time knowing Euro Auctions is the place to source the equipment they need.”

Market Price

“The used construction and agricultural machinery sector will also use our Leeds sale in January to ‘price check’ the market for the new year ahead. To set market value for the next 3 to 6 months, the Leeds sale sets the bar. With the volume of stock, variations of makes and models, we have the broadest cross section of individual machines available anywhere. Because of the volumes that we sell and because EVERYTHING SELLS, it is recognised globally as realising true market value. Examples of this are machine models we consistently sell large quantities of; ZX130’s, JS130’s, KX080’s, U48’s Thwaites Dumpers or JCB Telehandlers for example. Within each of these models we will sell almost every age from new to 10+ years old, this allows us to be extremely accurate when working with clients to advise on expected values for their equipment and what we can achieve.”

Fleet Sales

“In this January sale we noticeably saw a higher number of ‘fleets’ of equipment making its way to us to be sold, i.e. multiples of the same units from one company. This shows that operators are finally getting stock through from OEMs which is good for the used equipment industry and great for our buyers. We are now seeing rental and construction companies disposing of large multiples of the same machine makes, models and years, making room for new machines to be delivered. This buoyancy in the market is good for buyers and sellers alike. At the January 2023 sale 700+ excavators went over the ramp, which included 408 mini excavators, which for Leeds was another record number. Again, presenting this volume of excavators for sale has become a regular occurrence at Euro Auctions, Leeds and there is nowhere, certainly in Europe, where buyers can see such a compliment of diggers for sale.”

What’s Hot

“At the January 2023 sale there were many exceptional lots that made some fantastic prices. In what is a ‘self-regulating’ industry, the market dictates the value of each item sold – demand and supply set the price. Those following the auction closely will have noticed that many models increased in prices since the sales towards the end of 2022.”

Top Picks

"At this January 2023 sale, we saw a large number of Excavators of all sizes. Telehandlers and Articulated Dump Trucks were available in good numbers also, all making strong prices. Of all the equipment sold, here are some of my personal 'Top Picks' from the January sale.” Concludes Chris Osborne.”