Auction company Ritchie Bros has paid $26.7m to acquire online equipment listings service for used heavy machinery and trucks, Mascus, in a deal with a side clause allowing for an additional payment of $3.8m based on the site’s performance over the next three years.
The auctioneer highlighted that Mascus hosted 3.2 million monthly unique visitors on its sites across 58 countries, and now has in excess 360,000 listings of equipment and other assets for sale.
Ravi Saligram, CEO of Ritchie Bros, said: “As one of the world’s leading equipment listing services, Mascus has carved out a loyal customer base, and has developed strong business tools and solutions that many equipment dealers and brokers now rely on to manage and sell their assets.
“Combining Ritchie Bros’ current capabilities with Mascus’ solutions will enhance the end-to-end services that we can provide to OEM’s, dealers and private equipment sellers.”
Founded in 2001, Mascus provides its online advertising and listing services to equipment manufacturers and dealerships via a subscription-based business model.
Saligram continued: “This acquisition is another step in Ritchie Bros’ strategy as the world’s leading equipment-disposition company by adding an important new channel.”
Based in Amsterdam, Mascus has operations across Europe, Asia, Africa and North America, catering to the construction, transport, agriculture, material handling, forestry, and grounds-care industries.
Tim Scholte, who will remain as the CEO of Mascus alongside the rest of the existing management team, added: “We look forward to working within the broader Ritchie Bros team, and leveraging their global used equipment sales expertise to further build our customer relationships and platform.
“Mascus will continue to build on its strong business model of online equipment listing services focussing on the needs of all advertisers.”
