Britannia AuctionsBusiness relocation and downsizing sales in Portsmouth
Portsea Island is full. That is the plain reason so many Portsmouth workshops end up moving to Dunsbury Park at Havant or across the harbour towards Fareham when they need more room, and why others take a smaller unit at Hilsea when the order book shrinks. Either way the move goes over one of a handful of roads, and every machine that crosses them costs money.
We run relocation and downsizing sales for the marine engineers, precision machinists, defence electronics firms and boatbuilders who make up most of the city's industry. You decide what is moving. We catalogue the rest where it stands, sell it by online timed auction and hand the buyers a collection window that fits your move out date. The sale can run while the workshop is still on contract.
Precision machines and test benches with a national trade
Machine tools from a Portsmouth precision shop are the most straightforward part of the sale. Small CNC lathes and mills, surface grinders, coordinate measuring machines and the tooling cabinets that go with them are bought on their specification, so online bidding opens the sale to bidders well beyond the area. The catalogue does the work, so we record the control, the hours, the axis travels and a photograph of the machine under power where it can be run.
Electronics and defence suppliers add a different list. Test equipment, environmental chambers, soldering and rework stations, ESD benches and clean room fittings are used by other electronics firms, and bidding for them is online. Calibration certificates tell a bidder what an instrument is and whether it can be relied on, so we ask for them early.
Anything that was used on a restricted contract is your call to include. We list what you tell us is yours to sell.
Getting heavy lots off the island on the day
Collection from Hilsea or Fratton is a traffic question more than a crane question. We check the loading space at each unit, on the Airport Industrial Estate and in the older units at Fratton and Cosham, where yards are often shared with neighbours who still need to work. Collection slots are booked so that large vehicles arrive one at a time and leave by the M275 rather than queuing on the estate road. For a large machine we send the buyer's rigger a plan of the access before they quote.
Boatbuilders and sailmakers at Trafalgar Wharf bring cutting tables, sewing machines, resin stores and moulds, and moulds are a lot we talk about early. A hull mould suits the yard that wants to build that boat and few others, so private treaty before the auction opens is often the better route.
Havant, Gosport, Waterlooville and Chichester are within a comfortable drive of the viewing day. Everyone else bids online.
What these sales can include
- CNC machine tools
- Presses and press brakes
- Racking and mezzanine floors
- Forklift trucks
- Air compressors
- Workshop tooling and hand tools
- Office furniture and desks
- IT equipment and servers
- Packing and labelling machines
- Welding equipment
- Extraction and dust collection systems
- Vans and light commercial vehicles
How the sale runs
We visit the site, list the lots and photograph them in place. You tell us which items are moving and which are for sale, and we tag the sale lots so there is no confusion on the shop floor.
The catalogue goes online as a timed auction. Bidding stays open for a set period, usually one to two weeks, and each lot closes at a fixed time with an extension if a bid arrives in the last minutes. We hold a viewing day at your premises, and lots are offered as seen under the auction terms, with buyers expected to inspect first.
After the sale we invoice the buyers and take payment. You are paid once the sale is reconciled and the collection window has closed, from cleared funds, less the agreed commission and any agreed costs. Buyers arrange and pay for removal, and our staff attend to release lots against paid invoices.
The business relocation and downsizing sales page covers when a relocation sale makes sense, timing the sale around the move, what to prepare, valuation and reserves, unsold lots and leftovers.
Questions about selling in Portsmouth
- We are moving from Hilsea to Dunsbury Park in stages. Can the sale be split?
Yes, though we would rather run one catalogue with two collection windows than two separate auctions. One catalogue keeps every lot in front of the same audience, and the collection dates can follow your stages, with the machines from the first bay going in the first window and the rest later. If the stages are months apart it is cleaner to run two sales. We will say which when we first visit, once we have seen how the move is planned.
- Some of our equipment has customer data on it. What happens to that?
Servers, laptops, test rigs with logging and even some CNC controls hold data, and it is your responsibility to clear it before the lot leaves the building. We will tell you which items we think need attention when we catalogue, and we can hold those lots back from collection until you confirm they have been wiped. If a machine cannot be wiped, we can sell it without the drive or the control and say so in the listing.
More questions about relocation sales
Related services
Guides
- Closing a business: a timeline for selling the assets
Work backwards from the day you hand the site over. This guide covers lease end and dilapidations, when to instruct, when staff should leave, when to keep the power on, and how to leave enough room for collection and making good.
- Selling a commercial vehicle fleet
Fleet sales turn on paperwork as much as on price. This guide covers the V5C, MOT and plating documents, clearing finance before listing, keys and livery, recording mileage and tachograph data, and how to defleet in batches while still trading.