A sale is not finished when the invoice is paid. Equipment still has to come off the floor, utilities have to be isolated, contractors have to be scheduled, and the building has to be handed over in the condition the lease or the buyer requires. AssetBuilt coordinates that work alongside the disposition, so recovery and exit are planned as one program rather than two.
Decommissioning is the controlled shutdown, disconnection and clearance of an industrial facility once production has ended. It covers the physical work of getting assets out, the compliance work of doing it safely and legally, and the scheduling work of doing it before the deadline that matters — a lease expiry, a closing date, or a demolition mobilization.
It is usually where a disposition either holds its value or quietly loses it. Equipment that cannot be removed on time gets abandoned. Buyers who cannot get site access walk away. Scrap that could have been sold gets paid for as disposal.
AssetBuilt approaches decommissioning as part of the recovery strategy rather than a cost centre bolted on afterwards. The same team that values and markets the assets plans how they leave the building, which means removal complexity is priced into the strategy from the start instead of discovered at the end.
Where demolition or redevelopment follows, AssetBuilt coordinates with ownership, contractors and redevelopment teams so that everything worth recovering is recovered before the building comes down.
A successful sale followed by a failed removal program is not a successful liquidation.
Disposition strategy and exit strategy should be developed together.
Scope is set by the facility, the assets and the handover condition required. A full program may include any of the following.
The sequence matters more than any single step. Removal that begins before the asset strategy is settled tends to destroy value that was still recoverable.
We walk the facility, record the asset base, and identify what is installed, what is connected, what is hazardous and what governs the exit date — lease, sale, or redevelopment schedule.
Assets are valued and a disposition route is chosen before anything is disconnected. Installed value and removed value are rarely the same number, and the difference decides what gets sold in place.
Rigging requirements, lift paths, door and roof access, contractor scope, insurance thresholds and buyer removal windows are set against the exit date, then sequenced backwards from it.
Utilities are isolated, assets are disconnected and rigged out, and buyer access is supervised. Site security, compliance and scheduling are managed throughout.
Unsold assets are remarketed, bulked, scrapped or abandoned where permitted. Scrap is segregated and sold rather than paid away as disposal.
The building is handed over in the required condition, and the project is documented and reconciled — what sold, what it realized, what it cost, and what remains.
Most of the money lost in a facility exit is lost in the last sixty days, not at the auction.
Installed value and removed value are not the same number.
Knowing the difference before disconnection begins is what protects the recovery.
AssetBuilt was engaged to lead value maximization, industrial asset recovery, auction services and demolition support for the former Anheuser-Busch campus in Newark, New Jersey — approximately 3.2 million square feet across more than 86 acres. The mandate covered recovery, marketing and disposition of surplus manufacturing assets, including a global live webcast auction, while supporting the decommissioning and demolition programme alongside the ownership and redevelopment teams.
Read the announcementIf you have a closure date, a lease expiry or a redevelopment schedule, the decommissioning plan should be built at the same time as the disposition strategy — not after it. Send the facility details and we will tell you what is realistic against your timeline.
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