The City of Medford, Minn., officially welcomed international auctioneer Ritchie Bros. to town on March 19 at the company’s first industrial auction at its new permanent auction site. The facility is located on 6000 Frontage Road in Medford.

Medford Mayor Danny Thomas and Owatonna Mayor Thomas Kuntz helped company officials cut the grand opening ribbon in front of a crowd of more than 2,500 registered bidders — a record for the most registered bidders at a Ritchie Bros. auction in the state of Minnesota (there have been 80 Ritchie Bros. auctions conducted in the state over the years).

The new permanent auction site is one of 38 Ritchie Bros. auction sites around the world. Ritchie Bros. celebrated the grand opening of its Minneapolis auction site during the unreserved industrial auction on March 19. More than 1,000 construction, agricultural, transportation and industrial equipment items were sold to the highest bidders at the multi-million dollar public auction, which attracted bidders from 19 countries, including 46 U.S. states.

“On behalf of the citizens of Medford we want to welcome Ritchie Bros. and its customers,” said Thomas. “Ritchie Bros. is a class act to work with and I have nothing but good things to say about them.”

Nick Nicholson, Ritchie Bros. senior vice president, said, “This Minnesota auction location is very important to us. We do a lot of business here and are very thankful for the loyal support of our buying and selling customers. Over the years we have sold hundreds of millions of dollars of equipment to customers here in the state, but we have also sold equipment to customers from all over the world. Today, for instance, we have buyers participating from as far away as Saudi Arabia, New Zealand and Colombia…and many of them are here on-site participating [rather than via internet]. It’s a great day today and we thank you for coming. We are pumped to have this great new facility and look forward to many, many years at this location.”

The new 120-acre Minneapolis (Medford) auction site features a 30,000 sq. ft. auction building with seating for more than 600 people in a heated auction theater, as well as an on-site refurbishing facility where equipment can be cleaned, repaired and painted before it is sold.

“In this economy and with all that we read it is really great to see more than 2,000 bidders here today,” said Kuntz. “It was a joint effort of both Medford and Owatonna to bring this great organization to Medford and we are pleased to welcome you here today.”

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