ATG announces acquisition of EstateSales.NET

Auction Technology Group (“ATG”), operator of world- leading marketplaces for curated online auctions, is pleased to announce the acquisition of Vintage Software LLC (the “Acquisition”), trading as EstateSales.NET, a leading US estate sales listing site.

Background

Based in Jackson, Missouri, EstateSales.NET provides a platform to facilitate estate sales across the US. Both corporate estate sale companies as well as private customers use the site to advertise online the sale of millions of unique second-hand items sourced from a range of events including private home estate sales and business liquidations.  

Approximately 58% of revenue is derived from EstateSales.NET’s over four thousand monthly listing subscribers with the remaining 42% from other fees, which predominantly includes traditional pay per listing fees.  The website attracts over three million monthly site visitors, as well as over one million email subscribers, who are primarily buyers looking to discover unique items for sale at local estate sale events.  Three quarters of all listings relate to in-person sales, with the remaining predominantly sold through third-party online auction sites.  The site also has a nascent marketplace capability with over 125,000 items sold in 2022 directly through the site.  EstateSales.NET was founded by the McQuade family and launched under its current name in 2002.  Today, the company is run by Micky McQuade, and prior to the Acquisition was wholly owned by the McQuade family.


Rationale for the Acquisition

  • The Acquisition expands ATG’s immediately addressable market into the growing and fragmented US estate sales market, which had an estimated gross merchandise value of $5bn1 in 2022.
  • Consistent with ATG’s strategy, this represents a strong entry point into an attractive adjacent channel for the resale of second-hand items and is consistent with ATG’s purpose to accelerate the growth of the circular economy.
  • EstateSales.NET is a market leader in an industry vertical at the start of its digital transformation.
  • EstateSales.NET’s seller and buyer bases are highly complementary and synergistic to ATG, providing the opportunity to drive more buyer traffic to ATG’s marketplaces, convert browsers of the site to online auctions and enable sellers to cross-list across multiple ATG marketplaces.  
  • The acquisition also provides the potential to leverage ATG’s existing marketplace technology, experience and value-added services to customers of EstateSales.NET and grow the online estate sales marketplace offering.

1 Management estimates January 2023


John-Paul Savant, Chief Executive Officer of Auction Technology Group plc, said:

“As a leading US estate sale listing site, EstateSales.NET is a natural fit for ATG as we unlock further areas of value within the secondary goods market and facilitate another part of the circular economy. We are excited by the multiple growth opportunities ahead, including enabling more sellers of unique and specialised secondary items to cross-list across multiple marketplaces and gain access to a larger pool of bidders and buyers, as well as the opportunity to develop EstateSales.NET into the leading online estate sales platform in the US. We look forward to welcoming Micky and the EstateSales.NET team into ATG.”