Two Deals For Ritchie Bros.

Ritchie Bros., the industrial auctioneer and a equipment distributor has announced a pair of moves.   The company has made a strategic investment in Machinio Corp. – a global search engine for finding, buying and selling equipment.  It has also completed its acquisition of the 49% outstanding minority interest of Ritchie Bros. Financial Services.

“Our investment in Machinio demonstrates our desire to find even more ways to support the equipment industry and serve the various needs of equipment owners. Machinio’s scalable model uses innovative technologies to provide buyers with the widest assortment of equipment listings on the web, while also driving lead generation for equipment sellers,” said Ravi Saligram, CEO Ritchie Bros.

Taking a minority interest in Machino is part of what Ritchie Bros. says is a strategy of investing in equipment distribution channels.  With more than one million items listed for sale, Machinio provides equipment buyers with a database of available used machinery covering construction, farming, metal working, processing, packaging, material handling, and woodworking equipment. Machinio reportedly receives over three million page views each month from more than 400,000 unique website viewers from 190 countries.

Ritchie Bros. was the lead investor in a Series A round of financing, raising gross proceeds of $3.0 million for Machinio. All other terms of the minority investment are confidential. The investment is not considered to be material to Ritchie Bros.’ financial results. Machinio, based in Chicago, will continue to operate as an independent business.