HCL offers second life for used handling equipment

A new company has been formed in the Netherlands by experienced heavy lift truck executive Tigran van der Linden – Heavy Cargo Lifters BV (HCL). This is focused on reducing costs and lead times for buyers’ pre-owned equipment and the companies that sell the equipment when they replace it with a new machine.

HCL starts from the premise that OEMs and end-users have no particular interest in remarketing pre-owned equipment themselves. Their main concern is to keep operations reliable to ensure that cargo keeps moving with limited, or preferably no, downtime.

For this reason, specialist traders become involved in buying and selling equipment and this increases costs for buyers and lowers the margin for sellers, not least because two shipments are involved and the trader has to make his own margin.

HCL acts as broker between the seller and the buyer. Unlike the trading house, it has no financial stake in the machine itself and it is up to the two parties to agree on the technical condition and the price, although HCL offers advice and support on this and on general trading conditions for the equipment in question.

The purchase can be organised including a technical inspection by a third party and the buyer and seller can agree between themselves on warranty terms for the product. If the parties agree a deal, the transportation can be arranged directly between the seller’s and the buyer’s premises through HCL’s sister company, Heavy Cargo Logistics BV, which can support shipment to any destination in the world, says van der Linden.

HCL offers cost savings for used equipment because the buyer buys directly from the previous owner, cutting out the middleman and saving on the transport from the previous owner to the trader. Either the buyer or the seller can organise the transport with Heavy Cargo Logistics BV.