Nationwide online auctioneer John Pye Auctions has purchased the freehold on a new 350,000 square foot super site at Cradley Heath in Birmingham providing more space to fulfil growing client demand.
The facility and former site of Dart Products Europe Limited on Garretts Lane is situated approximately 8.5 miles west of Birmingham’s city centre within an established industrial and employment area of Cradley Heath. It benefits from excellent connectivity and accessibility to the national road and motorway networks, with easy access to the North, South, East and West of the country. It will be the largest of John Pye’s seven retail sites across the UK and mainland Europe.
Adam Pye, Managing Director at John Pye & Sons Limited, said: “Due to a large increase in stock levels and demand for our services from our clients across the whole business due to performance, in-house learning and innovations plus an increasing number of large insolvency instructions, we need more space to fulfil the evolving demands of our client base. This new site located in the West Midlands is in a strategic position in the country, so has huge benefits from a logistics point of view. Its size means we can take on more client stocks, hold more auctions and the location will contribute to our commitment to carbon reduction and sustainability by lowering transport emissions.”
With plans to create a state-of-the-art auction facility, encompassing 50 salerooms when it is completed, the new super site will support existing client’s stock as well as new business and create a new central hub to hold stock to respond to growing client demands.
For the last financial year ending 31st July 2023 the business had a record-breaking year, with auction receipts hitting £119 million and turnover reaching £45 million, up 36% on the previous year. New bidder registrations were also up 90% year on year. The results came off the back of John Pye being appointed by administrators to manage the sale of stock on behalf of several high-profile insolvencies, including homeware and furniture designers MADE.COM, cyclist equipment firm, Moore Large & Co and high street furniture retailer, The Sofa Workshop.
Adam Pye continues: “With an expected total investment of over £15million, this is part of our sustainable growth plan to continue to be the leading auctioneer in the UK, building on last year’s success. It will be our biggest site to date in the John Pye network and will create over 200 jobs once fully operational.”
John Pye worked with Mark Lewis at Browne Jacobson and the team at NatWest Bank to broker the deal. The site exchanged in January and is expected to open in Q2 2024.
