With the addition of access to late model, low-hour Caterpillar equipment, IronPlanet chairman and CEO Greg Owens said his company’s merger with Cat Auction Services will “drive value and services to all of our buyers and sellers.”
The merger, announced in December, was completed April 2.
“I am confident that our marketplace offerings will enable our sellers to maximize the recovery on assets sold by reaching the right buyers at the right time through channels that are optimized for them,” Owens said in a statement. “Similarly, our buyers will have access to a broad selection of equipment so that they can manage their inventory on their time frames either in a buy-it-now format or through one of our online or onsite auctions.”
IronPlanet now has a customer base of 1.3 million registered users and offers weekly online auctions. The merger with Cat Auction Services adds onsite auctions to IronPlanet’s formerly online-only format. IronPlanet will retain the CAS branding at these events.
In an interview with Equipment World, Jeff Jeter, president of the Americas for IronPlanet, said there will likely be 10 live onsite sales each year at the outset.
While waiting for the merger to finalize, the two companies held their first joint auction in February in Kissimmee, Florida. The event featured more than 1,500 lots of heavy equipment from 20 Cat dealers and more than 100 sellers.
The merger has came under fire earlier this year when International Construction Products’ sued Caterpillar, Volvo and Komatsu, alleging they colluded to limit competition in the United States by blocking ICP’s planned IronPlanet distribution channel through its merger with Cat Auction Services. IronPlanet is not a party in the lawsuit.
