Birmingham auction house hammers out Midlands expansion

BIRMINGHAM auction house SDL Bigwood is expanding its Midlands network with the addition of two new regular sales.

The firm already holds six auctions a year at Villa Park, but from November 9 it will also be holding sales at the Village Hotel in Coventry.

Following the acquisition of Graham Penny Auctions earlier this year, SDL Bigwood is now the largest auction house outside of London and ranked number four in the UK by combined annual turnover.

The combined auction houses now have total annual sales of more than £160m and the new auctions in Coventry, supported by an event in Stoke-on-Trent – being launched by SDL Graham Penny Auctions from October, will increase this considerably.

Gurpreet Bassi, SDL Bigwood auctions partner, said: “We have already raised over £45m for our vendor clients this year at our Birmingham auction and we want to continue that success for our clients in Coventry.

“There is a buoyant property market in Coventry and one that we feel would benefit from a new regional auctioneer with a local knowledge and a national database of buyers.

“Our Coventry auction will enable us to serve Warwick, Leamington, Rugby, Kenilworth and even further afield such as Northampton and Milton Keynes.”

Rory Daly, chief executive of SDL Bigwood, said the appeal of the auctions was easy to see as more people looked to sell property quickly.

“Competitive bidding means that prices achieved often outperform sale by private treaty,” he said.

“Sellers relish the certainty of sale and immediate exchange of contracts and this is fuelling our growth.

“When we were acquired by SDL Group late last year, we said that this would now give us the platform to grow our auction operations.”

With the additional auctions in Coventry and Stoke, the firm will have staged 29 sales by the time the year is out and taken a huge stride towards in goal of building a national auction network.

The firm is also eyeing the possibility of extending into venues outside of the Midlands.

“We are assessing the potential of four possible targets in the north of England and hope to make some positive announcements in the early autumn,” added Mr Daly.