Whole lines and whole sites
Closing a plant, or stopping a line?
Consign the machinery with us. The good machines ship to our warehouse in Roebuck, we sell them to users, and you are paid the agreed share. We tell you plainly which machines are worth consigning and which are not.
A closure has 2 dates that govern everything on the equipment side, and most plans find them late. The first is the lease or site handover date, because it usually will not move. The second is the day utilities go off, because almost every removal task needs power, light and compressed air. Everything on this page is downstream of those 2 dates, so find them in your first week.
The same 6 steps
What we do on a closure
The same 6 steps as any other consignment, read against your dates instead of your convenience.
Tell us what you have
You send what you have, however rough. We come back with which machines we would take on consignment, which we would not, and why. That single answer usually reshapes the whole plan.
Terms agreed in writing
Commission, payment timing, storage, minimum period, inbound freight and rigging, insurance while the machines are in our care, preparation, and what happens if a machine does not sell. Before anything moves.
Ship it to Roebuck
We help arrange rigging and freight and put you in front of the crews and carriers who move this class of equipment. Who pays for what is in the agreement you already have.
We receive, inspect, photograph and list it
Each machine checked in against your list, inspected, photographed on our floor and written up the way a buyer needs to read it.
We market it to buyers worldwide
Listed in the right industry on americanplantandequipment.com and marketed to our buyer network, machine by machine rather than as a job lot.
It sells, and you are paid the agreed share
We handle every inquiry, every inspection, the negotiation, the buyer payment, the paperwork and the outbound shipment, export documentation included.
The one thing a closure adds
Sequencing. Removals are ordered by access rather than by value, and set against the lease date and the utilities date rather than around them. That work sits between the agreement and the freight, and a machine moved twice is charged twice.
What consignment does and does not solve on a closure
Consignment is the right route for the good machines. It gets them off your floor now, and it sells them to users rather than to the room that turns up on auction day. It is not a way to empty a building by a fixed date, and we will not pretend otherwise.
Most closures use 2 routes. The machines with a real second-hand market come to us on consignment. The general plant equipment, the racking, the odds and ends and the machines nobody will want go to an auction or to scrap. Deciding that split early is worth more than anything else on this page.
Written for a receiver, a lender or an asset manager
If you control assets you did not choose and cannot operate, the things you need are a documented process, a written agreement, insurance while the asset is in somebody else's care, and a paper trail that survives a question 6 months later.
- Every machine is consigned under a written agreement, signed before it ships.
- Each machine is checked in against your list on arrival, and anything that does not match is raised then, not later.
- How each machine is insured while it is in our care is set out in that agreement.
- Ownership, lien and title questions are resolved before a machine is accepted, not after it is listed.
- We do not publish your name, your site or your list.
Confidentiality
A listing describes the machine. It does not name you, it does not name your site, and it does not give a location. If the closure is not public, say so in your first email and tell us what may and may not appear.
Consigning machinery without announcing it
What to do this week
- Name 1 person who owns the equipment, from the first list to the last truck.
- Find the lease or handover date and the utilities shut-off date, and write them down.
- Confirm which machines are leased, financed, customer owned or pledged to a lender.
- Start the list. 8 fields and 5 photographs per machine.
- Stop the value leaks: no cannibalizing, no tooling moved away from its machine, nothing put outside temporarily.
- Send us what you have, even half of it, and we will tell you what is worth consigning.
The agreement, before anything ships
All 8 topics, in writing, for every machine you consign.
- The commission, and the share you are paid
- When you are paid after the machine sells
- The storage arrangement while it is with us
- The minimum period the machine stays with us
- What happens if it does not sell
- Who pays inbound freight and rigging
- How the machine is insured while it is in our care
- What preparation and cleaning we do at our end
The most expensive week of a closure
The one where the equipment is still nobody's job. Everything that raises what a machine sells for is cheap while the people who knew it are still in the building, and impossible afterwards.
Prefer to talk first?
Say the date first. It changes the advice.
Tell us about the site
More fields than our other forms, because a closure is a project and the answers change what we say back. If the closure is not public, mark it confidential and we will treat it that way.
- We do not publish your site, your address or your list.
- We tell you which machines are worth consigning and which are not.
- We work to your lease date and your utilities date.
- If an auction is the better route for the bulk of it, we say so.
Plant closure consignment
A person reads this, and a person answers it. Nothing here is published.
Earlier than that?
If the closure is still confidential and there is no list yet, start with the checklist. It is the equipment side of a plant closing in 6 sections, free, and there is nothing to sign.
Or call (864) 574-0404 and ask for the consignment desk.