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Closure auctions down on last year
Page 57
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III Fewer hauliers may be looking to sell up and leave the industry, reckons independent dealer Robert Reynolds.
Over the past year Reynolds and his colleague Malcolm Harrison have organised a series of Saturday auctions at the premises of operators who have decided to shut up shop. "However we aren't getting so many enquiries about setting up such sales as we were 12 months ago, and that has to be an encouraging sign," he comments.
"More hauliers seem to be making a profit. possibly because there aren't so many of them around these days competing for work. I don't think we've seen the last of the Saturday sales, though."
The position with used tractive units hasn't changed a lot in recent months, says Reynolds. "Big ones are selling, small ones aren't, there's a demand for the newer ones, but you couldn't even raffle the older stuff," he remarks.
He's increasingly concerned, however, by what's
happening in the new trailer market, and its implications for second-hand values. "The other day I saw a
brand new 13.6m flat trailer, complete with bolster pins, sell at auction for just 19,500, and that's got to be crazy. I've seen brand-new curtainsider and tipper trailers being disposed of through the auctions too.
"tf you can buy a new curtainsider for a mere £14,000, then what's that going to do to the value of one that's two years old? Trailer manufacturers seem to been some sort of suicide mission."
That said, demand for used fridge trailers remains strong, Reynolds states.