Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers, the world's largest auctioneer of industrial equipment, sold more items than ever before at its longest unreserved auction in Orlando, Fla., last week, with more than 5,000 equipment items being sold by unreserved auction over a five-day period.
"It's the first five-day auction sale our company has held in over 40 years of business," said Gary Seybold, Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers' regional manager for Florida. "There's a huge selection of late-model equipment and it will all be sold to the highest bidder. It looks like it's going to be a big auction; we recently expanded our Orlando yard, and it's already completely full."
The Ritchie Bros. Orlando auction site currently holds the company's record for largest gross auction sales. A four-day Orlando auction in February 2005 generated more than US$79 million in gross auction sales, beating the previous record set in Moerdijk, The Netherlands, just months earlier. More than 4,600 people from 62 countries and all 50 American states registered to compete at the February 2005 Orlando auction for nearly 3,600 equipment items and trucks.
In other news, the Vancouver, British Columbia-based company last week announced its financial results for the year ended Dec. 31, 2005. Net earnings for 2005 were $53.6 million, or $1.54 per diluted weighted average share, compared to $34.9 million, or $1.01 per diluted share, in 2004. Net earnings for 2005 included gains of $6.4 million ($4.1 million, or 11 cents per diluted share, after tax) recorded on the sale of property that was not being used in the company's operations. Excluding these gains, which the company does not consider part of its normal operations, net earnings for the year ended Dec. 31, 2005 would have been $49.5 million, or $1.43 per diluted weighted average share. Net earnings in 2004 included non-recurring income tax charges of $2.1 million; excluding this amount, net earnings would have been $37 million, or $1.07 per diluted weighted average share for 2004. All dollar amounts are presented in United States dollars.
Gross auction sales for the year ended Dec. 31, 2005 were a record $2.09 billion, 17-percent higher than gross auction sales in 2004. Auction revenues in 2005 were $212.6 million, an increase of 17 percent compared to the prior year. The company's auction revenue rate (auction revenues as a percentage of gross auction sales) was 10.16 percent in 2005, compared to 10.19 percent in 2004.
Ritchie Bros. held 153 industrial auctions in 11 countries throughout North America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Australia in 2005. It set 12 regional gross auction sales records during the year.
During 2005, Ritchie Bros. had approximately 214,000 bidder registrations at its industrial auctions. Internet bidding continued to enhance the company's live auctions, and in 2005 the company sold more than $270 million worth of trucks and equipment to online buyers using its rbauctionBid-Live system.
For the quarter ended Dec. 31, 2005, gross auction sales were $589.9 million and auction revenues were $59.9 million. The auction revenue rate was 10.16 percent. Net earnings for the quarter were $14.2 million, or 41 cents per diluted weighted average share, compared to $11.3 million, or 33 cents per diluted share, in 2004.
The company's board of directors also announced the appointment of Robert Murdoch to the board, effective Feb. 20. Murdoch brings extensive experience to his new role with the company. He was president and CEO of Lafarge Corp. and remains a director of that company. He is also a director of Lafarge Corp.'s majority shareholder Lafarge S.A. Paris, as well as a director of Sierra Systems Group, Lallemand Inc. and Timberwest Forest Corp.
