Asset sales of Toyota’s Australian plant begins

Hilco Industrial Acquisitions B.V. (HIA) an industrial asset acquisition and disposition services company announced that it will began private treaty sale process of all machinery and equipment assets located at the Toyota manufacturing facility in Altona North, Melbourne, Australia.

The private treaty sale will begin immediately and is scheduled to run until the plant officially closes on October 3, 2017. Grays online, a JV partner with HIA, will begin comprehensive online auction of all remaining assets, the process is expected to continue till the end of February 2018.

In 2014, Toyota had announced it would stop making cars in Melbourne beyond 2017, blaming “unfavourable Australian dollar”, high costs of manufacturing and low economies of scale. Following the decision, the manufacturing workforce was reduced from 4,000 to 1,300 people and moving most of its white-collar workforce to the city.

The machinery and equipment at the Altona North manufacturing facility was seen as a extensive and state of the art that had produced over 3.4 million Toyota Camry, Aurion & Avalon vehicles including Hybrid automobiles since 1994, all of which were sold within Australia and for export throughout the Middle East and Asia.

The Altona plant comprised of seven distinct facilities on a 77-acre site and was once viewed as a marvel of vertical integration in a small market. The site employed over 2500 workers, producing approximately 100,000 cars per year using both human capital and 280 welding robots to create a single vehicle.

Robert Bouland – CEO of Hilco Industrial Acquisitions B.V. said “This is an unprecedented sale with machinery and equipment assets that are in exceptionally good condition.” Mr. Bouland indicated that the availability of assets of this caliber is unusual as it represents a consolidation of facilities rather than a bankruptcy which often has older automotive manufacturing equipment.”