David Edward Ritchie

Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers

Type	Public
Traded as	: RBA : RBA
Industry	Auctions & Industrial products distribution
Founded	Kelowna, British Columbia
Headquarters	Burnaby, British Columbia
Key people	David Edward Ritchie, Founder, Beverley Briscoe, Chairman, Ravi Saligram (CEO)
Products	Auctions & Industrial products distribution
Number of employees	1,200+
Website	www.rbauction.com

Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers is an industrial auctioneer. The company is headquartered in Burnaby, a suburb of Metro Vancouver, and has 110 locations in 25 countries and 44 auction sites worldwide. The company sells through unreserved public auctions a broad range of used and unused industrial assets, including equipment, trucks and other assets utilized in the construction, transportation, agricultural, material handling, mining, forestry, petroleum, and marine industries.

Ritchie Bros. is a public company. Its common shares are traded on the and under the ticker symbol RBA.

Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers was established in Kelowna, B.C., Canada. The three Ritchie brothers – Ken, John and Dave Ritchie – took over the OK Used Furniture Store from their father in 1955. They entered the auction business in 1958 when they needed CA$2,000 to pay a bank debt on short notice. A friend suggested they conduct an auction to get rid of some surplus inventory from the furniture store. They conducted their first auction at the Scout Hall in Kelowna in 1958 and discovered a new way of doing business.

Starting with that first auction at the Scout Hall, Ritchie Bros. maintained a strict policy of conducting unreserved auctions – meaning there were no minimum bids and no reserve prices. The brothers also established a policy of not allowing bid-ins or buybacks by the sellers.

The brothers began conducting auctions more regularly and in 1958 incorporated Ritchie Bros. Auction Galleries Ltd. to formalize their new business. Ritchie Bros. began selling used equipment in the 1960s. In 1963 Dave Ritchie moved to Vancouver, B.C. and rented an auction site on S.E. Marine Drive. He set up the company's first equipment auction in Vancouver shortly after.