Plant Closures & Consolidations
Manufacturing Plant Liquidation: One Firm, From Appraisal to Final Settlement
KD Auctions liquidates manufacturing plants nationwide by managed auction or outright purchase. Founded in 1996 by Michael and Arlene Treger and based in Scottsdale, Arizona, it is a member of the Industrial Auctioneers Association, and its appraisals are prepared by AMEA Certified Equipment Appraisers Tim Pfister and Peter Lenstrohm. Closing or consolidating a plant is a project with a deadline attached, and usually a landlord, a lender, and a workforce attached to that. KD Auctions runs the entire disposition under a single engagement: appraisal, cataloging, marketing, auction or outright purchase, removal supervision, and settlement accounting. We are onsite within 48 to 72 hours of engagement, and a managed plant auction runs 6 to 10 weeks from that first walkthrough to funds in hand.
What a Complete Plant Liquidation Actually Includes
The machines are the headline. The recovery is in everything else. A closing facility has to convert far more than its production floor, and the assets that get forgotten are the ones still sitting in the building on the day the lease ends, when they stop being value and start being a removal invoice.
A typical plant engagement covers:
- ✓Production machinery: CNC machining and turning centers, presses, injection molders, extruders, lasers, press brakes, grinders, EDM, welding cells
- ✓Support and plant systems: air compressors, chillers, dust collection, air handling, overhead cranes, transformers, bus duct
- ✓Tooling cribs and perishable tooling, fixtures, dies, molds, and workholding
- ✓MRO stores and spare parts inventory, often the single most underestimated category in the building
- ✓Material handling: forklifts, racking, conveyors, shelving, containers, dock equipment
- ✓Quality and metrology: CMMs, comparators, hardness testers, inspection and lab equipment
- ✓Rolling stock, trailers, yard equipment, and generators
- ✓Office FF&E, IT hardware, and server room equipment
- ✓Raw material, work in process, and finished goods inventory where it has resale value
- ✓Real estate, coordinated with your broker so the building sale and the asset removal share one calendar
We build all of it into one inventory of record, serialized and photographed, so nothing gets orphaned in a corner. Items that cannot carry their own lot get grouped into pallet and department lots rather than written off, because a bidder who came for the Mazak will very often take the tooling cart next to it.
Three Exit Paths, and How We Pick Yours
Managed plant auction. The default when the asset mix has depth, because competition sets the price rather than a negotiation does. With online bidding, a bidder in Ontario or Monterrey competes on the same lot as the shop twelve miles away without booking a flight. Runs 6 to 10 weeks from engagement.
Outright purchase by KD Machinery. KD Machinery, our parent company, buys the plant contents directly. It makes a cash offer the same day; you are paid in full before the equipment is removed, and removal is timed around your schedule. This is the right answer when the lease surrender date, not the recovery number, is the thing driving the decision.
Private treaty and pre-auction placement. For a flagship cell, a complete line, or a late-model machine with a thin bidder pool but a specific strategic buyer, a negotiated sale often clears more than an auction floor. We invite pre-auction offers on major assets and will tell you when one is worth taking.
Hybrid. Frequently the best structure: a cash floor on the anchor assets so you know your minimum, with the balance of the plant taken to auction for upside. You get a number you can plan around without capping what the sale can do.
The First 72 Hours
Consultation. You describe the facility, the deadline, and any lender or lease constraints. No commitment, no cost.
Onsite walkthrough, 48 to 72 hours. We walk the floor, capture makes, models, serials, and condition, and identify the assets that will drive the sale.
Valuation and written recommendation. A net proceeds range by path, with the calendar each path implies and an honest read on which assets are strong and which are not.
Production, launch, settlement. Photography, video, catalog build, and a marketing launch to our 500,000+ industry contacts, then per-lot settlement accounting from first lot sold to final check.
Priced From Live Transaction Data: The Power of Two
Most auctioneers price a plant from comparable auction results. We price it from what machines are actually selling for right now, because, as of 2026, our parent company KD Machinery sells more than 750 machine tools a year and has been a used-machinery business since 1996. When we bracket your horizontal boring mill or your 400 ton press, that number comes from live transaction data, not a depreciation schedule.
That is the Power of Two: two channels under one firm. The auction drives competitive bidding across our 500,000+ industry contacts on a date certain. The retail channel places the assets that perform better in front of a single direct buyer. No single competitor runs both, which means most of them have exactly one way to sell your plant, whether or not it is the right one.
What Every Extra Week Costs
Plant assets do not appreciate sitting behind a locked door. While a decision waits, the facility keeps accruing holdover rent or mortgage, utilities, insurance, security, and personal property tax, and the equipment keeps drifting out of running condition. Machines that sat through a winter without power, coolant, or way oil sell for less than the same machines photographed warm.
There is a second cost that is harder to see. A seller who waits until the last four weeks before a surrender date has removed the auction from the menu and is left negotiating from a position everyone in the room can read. Starting early is worth more than any single tactic we can run later.
Fees and Settlement
Our fee is tailored to the engagement and quoted upfront, and most sellers pay nothing out of pocket. There are no published percentages here because a single-line plant and a 300,000 square foot multi-department facility are not the same engagement and should not carry the same structure.
Settlement is per lot. You receive gross proceeds, buyer's premium collected, every expense itemized, and net proceeds, in a format that stands up in front of a board, a lender's credit file, or a court. Founded by Michael and Arlene Treger in 1996, KD has run hundreds of auctions since, with hundreds of millions in machinery sales behind the numbers we put in front of you.
Credentials & Standing
KD Auctions is licensed and bonded in every state that requires it, and carries professional liability and errors and omissions coverage. Our appraisals are USPAP-compliant and prepared by AMEA-certified appraisers, and are prepared in the form lenders, courts, and trustees expect. Our parent company, KD Machinery, has been an AMEA member since 2004 and is an MDNA member, and our principals belong to industry associations including NABT. Credential documentation is available on request.
Request a Confidential ConsultationDefinitions and Guides
The terms and steps that come up in this kind of sale, explained in plain language.
Common Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does a manufacturing plant liquidation take?
A managed plant auction typically runs 6 to 10 weeks from engagement to settlement, which covers the onsite walkthrough, cataloging, photography, the marketing campaign, the bidding window, and buyer removal. An outright purchase by KD Machinery compresses that considerably: it makes a cash offer the same day, you are paid in full before the equipment is removed, and removal is timed around your schedule. Which one fits depends on whether your constraint is the recovery number or the calendar.
Can you buy the entire plant outright instead of running an auction?
Yes. KD Machinery, our parent company, buys complete facility contents outright. It makes a cash offer the same day; you are paid in full before the equipment is removed, and removal is timed around your schedule. We can also structure a hybrid where KD Machinery buys the anchor assets for a firm number and we auction the balance. An outright purchase trades some upside for certainty of both amount and date, which is often the correct trade when a lease surrender or a court deadline is fixed. We will tell you honestly when a managed auction would serve you better.
What does a plant liquidation cost?
The fee is tailored to the engagement and quoted upfront, and most sellers pay nothing out of pocket because costs are recovered from the sale rather than invoiced in advance. We do not publish percentages, because the right structure for a single-department surplus sale is not the right structure for a full facility with real estate attached. You will have the complete economics in writing before you commit to anything.
Do we have to shut down production before you start?
No. We regularly catalog and photograph around a running line, working off-shifts or weekends where the schedule requires it, and we sequence removal so the last operating cells come out last. For consolidations where production continues at another site, we coordinate the sale calendar against your transfer schedule so nothing is sold out from under an order that has not shipped yet.
Who handles rigging, removal, and leaving the building broom-clean?
Buyers are responsible for their own rigging and removal under the terms of sale, and we supervise the removal period onsite so equipment leaves safely and only against a paid invoice. We coordinate qualified riggers for buyers who need one, manage the checkout process, and can arrange final cleanout so the facility is turned back to the landlord or the new owner in the condition your lease requires.
What happens to assets that do not sell?
Very little goes unsold when lots are priced and grouped correctly, which is most of the reason we spend time on lotting strategy before launch. For anything genuinely without a market, we will say so during the valuation rather than after the sale, and we can arrange scrap and recycling disposition so the residual clears the building instead of becoming your problem on the last day.
Do you handle the appraisal too, for our lender or the IRS?
Yes. Our appraisals are USPAP-compliant and prepared by our AMEA Certified Equipment Appraisers, and are prepared in the form lenders, courts, and trustees expect. We provide Orderly Liquidation Value, Forced Liquidation Value, and Fair Market Value opinions with full methodology documentation, desktop or onsite, including expedited turnaround when a credit committee or filing deadline requires it.
Confidential Plant Liquidation Consultation
Closing or consolidating a facility? Send a few details. All inquiries are handled in strict confidence, and a principal responds within 24 business hours.
Every Deal Is Different.
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Tell us what you have and where you are. We'll tell you honestly what it's worth and the best way to move it.
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