Arcomet sets up in Singapore

The company's new Singapore subsidiary, Arcomet Asia, will be headed up by former Y&P boss Roger Poon. Arcomet has also established 70:30 or 80:20 joint ventures with Height Tower Cranes of South Korea and Hontrade of Hong Kong. A third rental-only deal with an unnamed Dubai tower crane rental company is expected to be finished by the end of April. It will not affect current Comedil dealer Al Rana, based in Sharjah, UAE.

At March's ConExpo show, Comedil signed exclusive distribution rights to Arcomet for Southeast Asian countries including Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Phillippines, Hong Kong and Korea, Arcomet business development director Mariano Moritsch told Cranes Today. Moritsch has been with Arcomet for two years since leaving family business manufacturer Terex-Comedil, where he was marketing director. Moritsch worked with Roger Poon when at Comedil. Moritsch is a director of Arcomet Asia, as is Arcomet president Dirk Theyskens and chief financial officer Rudy Sterkens.

Arcomet plans to have stock of about 100 towers in Singapore. Thirty come from Y&P, 10 from GML, 32 from an order placed with Comedil in December, and the rest from another planned order. Arcomet Asia will offer sales and service of Comedil cranes throughout the region. In Singapore, GML will be renamed Arcomet Rental Solutions.

Moritsch said that the Hong Kong and South Korean joint ventures would have about 20 cranes in stock. The company is also looking at setting up joint venture partners in Australia and New Zealand and Taiwan.

"Most of the people, in most of the rental companies in the world, are linked to the local market. Arcomet, together perhaps with Morrow, is the only player that is trying to diversify, to lower risk by having geographical spread," Moritsch said.

"All of us have seen what happened in Asia in 1997; the market collapsed all of a sudden, and many cranes working on job sites stayed on the ground for years. People are happy to say, if this market collapses, there are other markets where the cranes could go. It is also the philosophy of Arcomet to have not more than 100 cranes per market, with the intention to buy cranes possibly for other markets. We invest in the two top tower crane brands- Potain and Comedil- except Liebherr, which is a little too expensive for rental. We have seen that although the deal was not easy to do, and the mentality in certain cases was quite different, the idea was well-accepted by everyone."

Roger Poon and June Koh have signed contracts to stay with Arcomet Asia for at least three years. "We do want to keep all the management in the area because we strongly believe that the growth of those companies has been limited, not because of management problems, but because of capital expenditure possibilities and the risk of being in only one market," Moritsch said.

Moritsch said that Singapore is heading for a boom. "With the new casinos downtown and in Sentosa, and other residential construction makes Singapore one of the most interesting markets after 10 years of slowdown. It has shown a big increase in the last two years, and it is looking good for the next two at least. We think Singapore is a hub for the region, it is central and more stable than other markets. We don't expect big results from Thailand and Malaysia. We do expect do do well in niche markets in Hong Kong and Macao -especially with luffers, which Comedil produces 150 of per year. Australia/New Zealand is a different market, with very big cranes, many luffers, and to some extent still linked to rival manufacturer Favelle Favco."

Moritsch said that two countries not on Arcomet's radar were China and Japan. Preliminary talks with Potain about setting up a Chinese dealership network have so far not proved fruitful, he said, and he is not sure that Arcomet's two brand values, crane age and crane quality, would find a ready market in China. Japan's rental market seems to favour locally-made cranes, although Potain has sold some cranes there, he said.