Phase Space AI

Research

RB Global [RBA]

RB Global [RBA] — Tier-2 Research

As of 2026-07-30. Spot $110.76. Diluted shares 187.5m. Market cap $20,635m. Sources: FY2025 10-K (filed 2026-02-25, rba-20251231.htm), Q1'26 10-Q (filed 2026-05-04, rba-20260331.htm), Alpha Vantage normalized statements, Alpaca daily bars.


1. The headline finding: the screen's growth rate is an acquisition

The screen record ranks RBA on a 38.3% demonstrated revenue CAGR with a cagr_base_revenue of $1,733.8m. That base is 2022 revenue. Ritchie Bros closed its acquisition of IAA on 20 March 2023. The quarterly record shows the step directly:

quarter revenue ($m)
2022-12-31 444
2023-03-31 512 ← 11 days of IAA
2023-06-30 1,106 ← first full quarter with IAA
2023-09-30 1,020

Revenue went from $444m to $1,106m in two quarters. The 38.3% "demonstrated CAGR" is a single corporate event, not a demonstrated growth rate. This is the AIOT precedent exactly (screened +44.7pp; 63.5% of revenue acquired; legacy revenue down 1.0%), and it is the whole reason RBA screened at +23.3pp. The screen's own notes field flagged the symptom — "latest quarter 11.4% is below the 38.3% trailing CAGR the rank uses — the ranking signal is stale" — without identifying the cause.

What RBA actually grows at

FY2024 FY2025 Q1'26
Total GTV +2% +13%
Service GTV +1% +12%
Total lots sold +1% 0%
Total revenue +7% +11%
Service revenue +4% +5%
Inventory sales revenue +18% +32%

And Q1'26's +13% GTV is itself not organic: it includes J.M. Wood Auction Co. (closed 14 July 2025) and Smith Broughton Pty Ltd (closed 28 November 2025), partially offset by the deconsolidation of SYNETIQ on 21 June 2025 in the LKQ transaction. The company attributes the increase to "organic growth across all regions and sectors and the inclusion of J.M. Wood ... and Smith Broughton" without quantifying the split.

Demonstrated organic revenue growth is 4–7%. Service revenue — the commission business, unaffected by principal/agent mix — grew 4% in FY2025 and 5% in Q1'26. That is the number, and it is 31–34 percentage points below what the screen ranked the name on.


2. GTV versus revenue, and the service take rate

RBA's revenue is not comparable across periods without the mix, and the 10-K says so in its own risk language: "a change in the revenue mix between service revenue and revenue from inventory sales can have a significant impact on our revenue growth percentages."

Service take rate — deteriorating

FY2024 FY2025 Q1'25 Q1'26
Service GTV ($m) 14,984.2 15,113.4 3,572.8 4,004.0
Service revenue ($m) ~3,365 ~3,500 855.0 897.7
Service take rate 22.46% 23.16% 23.93% 22.42%

FY2025 take rate rose 70bp; Q1'26 fell 151bp year over year. The FY2025 rise was explicitly monetisation, not volume: "Transactional buyer revenue increased 8%, while total GTV increased 2%, primarily due to changes to our buyer fee structures, which were implemented in late-2024 and early-2025." Meanwhile the seller side went the other way: "Although commission rates in both the automotive and CC&T sectors were largely flat compared to the prior year, the higher proportion of automotive service GTV in the current year led to a lower seller commission rate overall."

So the FY2025 take-rate gain was a one-time fee-schedule change, now annualised out — which is why Q1'26 gives back more than FY2025 gained. Marketplace services revenue actually fell 6% in FY2025.

Principal versus agent — the mix is shifting toward principal, and it is dilutive

FY2024 FY2025 Q1'25 Q1'26
Inventory GTV ($m) 920.6 1,088.5 256.1 336.9
Inventory sales revenue ($m) ~932 ~1,100 256.1 336.9
Inventory return ($m) 56.8 57.9 21.1 30.2
Inventory rate 6.2% 5.3% 8.2% 9.0%

Inventory (principal) revenue grew +18% FY2025 and +32% Q1'26, against service revenue at +4% and +5%. RBA's reported revenue growth is being driven by the line that books gross GTV as revenue. In FY2025 the inventory return — the actual gross profit on $1,088.5m of inventory GTV — was $57.9m, a 5.3% rate, down 90bp. So the principal business added roughly $168m of reported revenue in FY2025 and $1.1m of gross profit.

This is the single most important optic in the name. Total revenue +7% against service revenue +4% means roughly 3pp of the headline is a revenue gross-up carrying a 5% margin. Q1'26 is worse: total revenue +11% against service revenue +5%.

Volume versus monetisation, answered: NEITHER. Lots sold grew 1% in FY2025 and 0% in Q1'26. GTV growth is average price per lot plus acquisitions. Revenue growth is fee-schedule changes (now lapped) plus a principal-basis gross-up. The underlying unit volume of the marketplace is flat.


3. Sector mix — a cyclical downturn hidden by automotive

FY2025 GTV $m growth lots sold growth
Automotive 8,659.1 +5% +7%
Commercial construction & transportation (CC&T) 5,663.6 −2% −13%
Other 1,879.2 +3% −8%
Total 16,201.9 +2% +1%

CC&T lots sold fell 13% and Other fell 8%. The legacy Ritchie Bros industrial-equipment business — the higher-take-rate half — is in a volume downcycle, and consolidated growth is being held up by the acquired IAA automotive-salvage business. Q1'26 reverses this (CC&T GTV +27% on +12% lots), but the company attributes it to "higher average price per lot sold, higher unit volumes and a favourable foreign exchange impact" plus the two acquisitions.

The automotive line carries its own cyclicality that the company names explicitly: FY2025 automotive GTV growth was reduced by "the non-recurrence of significant catastrophic events in the prior year" — i.e. insurance-salvage volume depends on hurricanes and hail. That is an exogenous cycle input by definition, and it is why this name is State B.


4. Accounting quality

4a. Retired / redefined metrics — one found

The FY2025 10-K's key-operating-metric list is "Gross Transaction Value, Inventory return, Inventory rate, Total lots sold." The Q1'26 10-Q list drops the phrase "Low value assets are sometimes bundled into a single lot, collectively referred to as 'small value lots'" from the definition of Total lots sold. The definition of the lot-count denominator was quietly simplified in the quarter that lots sold went to 0% growth. Small, but it is precisely the pattern — a definitional change in the year the metric turns.

No other retirement found. GTV, service/inventory revenue, inventory rate and lots sold are all disclosed consistently across the two documents.

4b. Same-quarter DSO, and the factoring check

2025-12-31 2026-03-31
Trade and other receivables, net ($m) 706.3 894.8
Allowance for credit losses ($m) 8.6 9.1
Quarterly revenue ($m) 1,222.0 1,234.6
Same-quarter DSO (days) 52.7 66.1

DSO deteriorated 13.4 days quarter over quarter, on revenue that grew 1.0%. Against the prior-year same quarter: Q1'25 revenue $1,109m; receivables at 2025-03-31 not retrieved, so the year-over-year same-quarter comparison is INDETERMINATE rather than estimated.

Factoring check — performed, per the CLS precedent. I searched the 10-K and 10-Q for receivables sales, factoring, securitisation and supply-chain finance. Zero hits on "factoring", "sold receivables" and "securitiz*" in the RBA 10-K. No receivables-sale programme is disclosed. So the 13.4-day DSO deterioration is real and is not masked by a sale — the opposite of the CLS case, where a genuine deterioration was hidden by $565m of sales. Recording the clean result explicitly.

The likely benign explanation is seasonal: auction proceeds payable rose from $457.9m to $687.1m (+50.1%) over the same quarter, so the receivable and the offsetting consignor payable moved together — a heavier auction calendar in Q1, not a collection problem. That is a hypothesis, not a finding.

4c. Customer concentration — not disclosed, which is itself the finding

The words "largest customer" and "concentration" appear zero times in the FY2025 10-K. RBA does not disclose customer concentration. But its own MD&A repeatedly attributes swings to individual contracts: "the non-recurrence of transportation fees related to a significant customer contract in the United States"; "the non-recurrence of third-party profit-sharing costs associated with a significant customer contract in the prior year"; CC&T GTV down partly on "the non-recurrence of certain significant customer contracts."

A company whose MD&A explains three separate line-item movements by reference to unnamed "significant customer contracts", while disclosing no concentration figure, has material single-customer exposure it is not quantifying. IAA's business is insurance-carrier salvage, where a handful of national carriers control most volume. This is the AAOI structural setup — a large undisclosed counterparty — with the difference that here the absence of the disclosure is what is observable. Recorded as INDETERMINATE with the reason, not as a pass.

4d. Series A Senior Preferred — $482.0m sitting in temporary equity

The Q1'26 balance sheet carries Series A Senior Preferred Shares of $482.0m in temporary equity (mezzanine), paying $6.7m of cumulative dividends per quarter plus allocated earnings of $4.6m. Net income of $135.6m becomes $124.6m available to common — an 8.1% haircut. This is a redeemable, dividend-bearing senior claim and it belongs in enterprise value. The screen omits it entirely.


5. Mechanism

Named: international expansion of the automotive-salvage marketplace. International GTV grew +7% in FY2025 and +53% in Q1'26 to $426.6m, and the company attributes automotive GTV growth to "market share gains, including the full-year impact of certain contract wins in the prior year and international expansion" and to "attracting record-high engagement from international buyers." A cross-border buyer base raises clearing prices on a fixed supply of salvage, which lifts GTV and commission revenue with no incremental lot volume — which is exactly what the FY2025 numbers show (price up, lots flat).

Its size is the problem. International is $1,333.4m of $16,201.9m GTV — 8.2%. Growing 53% off 8.2% of the base adds roughly 4pp to consolidated GTV growth at best. That is a real mechanism, and it is not large enough to support a 15% five-year revenue CAGR.


6. Defects found

Item Screen / vendor Correct Magnitude
revenue_cagr_demonstrated 38.3% organic service-revenue growth 4–5%; total revenue 7–11% 31–34pp. The entire +23.3pp valuation margin is this
gross_margin_pct 16.7% 45.6% (AV) / Q1'26 gross profit $563m on $1,235m revenue 28.9pp. At 16.7% the terminal margin of 15.5% nearly breached m_EBIT,T ≤ m_gross,T — a manufactured constraint violation
net_cash −$1,655m (Cash − LongTermDebt only) −$4,024m: short-term debt $282.0m + current LTD $51.2m + LTD $2,271.0m + operating leases $1,605.1m + Series A preferred $482.0m − unrestricted cash $667.2m $2,369m, 143% understated. EV understated 10.6% ($22,290m → $24,659m)
op_margin_pct 15.5% FY2025 ~18.2% filed; TTM 18.3% −2.8pp
AV cashAndCashEquivalentsAtCarryingValue $862.2m balance sheet cash is $667.2m; restricted cash is a separate $192.2m line $192.2m / 28.8% overstated — AV folds restricted cash into cash. For an auction house restricted cash is consignor money
AV operatingIncome Q1'26 $222m 10-Q $217.5m $4.5m / 2.1% high
AV shortLongTermDebtTotal $4,257.4m filed total debt incl. leases $4,209.3m $48m / 1.1% — essentially clean, reported per the verify-per-name rule
AV SPLITS 3.0000 on 2008-04-28; 2.0000 on 2004-05-07 both pre-window no corporate action inside the analysis window; clean
terminal_margin_basis "own trailing operating margin" 15.5% the trailing margin is 18.3%; the stored value is 2.8pp below the company's own actual joins the 21-of-84 population the terminal-margin audit found