| Pope Car Auction Ends Without Sale
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- A 1999 metallic gray Volkswagen Golf believed to once belong to the pope went up for sale on eBay, but the auction ended Saturday without a winner.
For the second time in two years, eBay hosted an auction for a car said to be Pope Benedict XVI's old hatchback. Though bids surpassed $204,000, a reserve price wasn't met.
The car's owner, a Texas-based online casino, GoldenPalace.com, bought the car in 2005 on eBay from a German man. The casino had posted two German automobile registration documents that list "Josef Kardinal Ratzinger" as the vehicle's previous owner.
A spokeswoman for eBay, Catherine Fisher, said she did not know what the seller's minimum price was. A message left with GoldenPalace.com was not immediately returned Saturday evening.
Bidding Availalbe On Waples' Driving Suit
It's the final order of business from Western Fair Raceway's overwhelmingly successful fundraiser on January 29th which brought a life saving defibrillator to the track in support of the Chase McEachern Tribute Fund of the Canadian Heart and Stroke Foundation. That evening in London, Randy Waples marked his return to active driving duty after a six month recovery from the injuries he suffered in a racing accident at Mohawk last Summer. In addition to dozens of horsepeople, members of the public and staff donating that night, Waples also contributed a custom driving suit which is now available for bidding through an Ebay site auction at www.quikdropbarrie.com. The suit, and the progress of the bidding, can be accessed by going into the designated "Chase Fund Raiser" down the left column.
Rosneft Wins Fifth Auction for Yukos Assets
A subsidiary of Russias state-run oil producer Rosneft has won the fifth auction for smaller assets of the now bankrupt oil company Yukos, the countrys federal property fund said on Wednesday, April 18.
Yukos, once Russias largest private oil company, was declared bankrupt Aug. 1, 2006, after three years of litigation with tax authorities over the companys tax arrears.
Rosnefts subsidiary Neft-Aktiv was declared the auction winner after it offered 1.03 billion rubles (about $40 million) for the lot whose initial price was 992.31 million rubles (about $38.5 million). The other bidders included the companies Akkord and MorTransInvest, the fund said.
The first auction was held on March 27 to sell Yukos 9.44 percent stake in Rosneft. It was won by Rosnefts subsidiary RN-Razvitiye, which offered 197.84 billion rubles for the lot (about $7.6 billion), compared with the lots initial price of slightly over 195.5 billion rubles (about $7.5 billion).
Industry Update: Auction Industry Growth Continued in First ...
KANSAS CITY -- Gross sales revenues from auctions by NAA members in the first quarter of 2007 increased 2% over the same-time period one year ago, a study by the NAA has found. If this trend continues, this will translate into approximately $266 billion total revenue for 2007 for the entire auction industry, up from $257.2 billion in 2006, a projected 3.4% increase for all of 2007. This suggests the possibility of a slightly slower growth in the live auction industry in 2007 compared to 2006, when a 7.1% growth rate occurred for all of 2006 over the previous year. The first quarter growth last year was 5.7%. These are the findings documented in a quarterly report of auction industry growth being conducted by global market research firm MORPACE International on behalf of the National Auctioneers Association (NAA).
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