Invercargill Brewery was a boutique brewer located in central Invercargill. Established in 1999 it was placed into receivership on the 8th of March 2018. Its assets included a range of tanks, a containerised industrial boiler, a containerised refrigeration plant and a wide range of brewing and bottling equipment. Skylarc were called to attend the site in 2018 and provide a valuation of the plant and machinery to give the receivers a starting point in the attempt to sell the business as a going concern. After a reasonable period of time a lack of interest in the business and the cessation of the lease on the premises meant the equipment had to be liquidated for its components.
The Challenge
Invercargill brewery’s equipment consisted of a large number of stainless steel brewing tanks, unfortunately due to a previous break in at the brewery site in Invercargill so many of the tanks were missing their port hole covers. Assets were also large and unwieldy so required highly skilled machinery movers to shift them safely into locations for quality photography and staging for collection by eventual buyers.
The Process
Skylarc’s valuers attended the site in early 2018 and provided a comprehensive valuation of the plant and machinery. Once attempts to sell the business as a going concern had been completed onsite, the receivers organised the transport of the equipment from the Invercargill site to Skylarc’s Christchurch. Skylarc provided storage facilities for the equipment while final efforts were made with interested parties to secure a sale of the brand and equipment. Once all avenues had been exhausted, Skylarc were assigned the task of realising the assets. There had been a considerable amount of interest in individual pieces of equipment prior during the attempts to sell the business as a going concern. Skylarc described and photographed 105 assets which were listed for 10 days on Trade Me.
Marketing
A comprehensive plan to sell all assets via an online Trade Me event was produced backed by a detailed marketing plan incorporating email outs to Skylarc’s own and industry mailing lists and a targeted Facebook campaign which reached over 189,000 people and saw 10,000 people visit the auction site. A landing page featuring information about the auction was published in all marketing and this linked onto the auction once it was listed on Trade Me. A phone direct marketing campaign saw the vast majority of breweries within New Zealand.
The Results
The auction ran for 10 days and consisted of 105 lots, final turnover was in ahead of our initial estimated sale return. Many of the larger machines were shipped throughout New Zealand and internationally including the containerised boiler which was sold into Fiji showing that comprehensive shipping options for buyers to conveniently get their machines maximises a vendors return by providing a much larger audience.