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Hiap Tong rents cranes, prime movers, and heavy machinery, and provides hydraulic lifting and haulage services to marine, petrochemical, and construction customers.
Hiap Tong is a Singapore heavy-lifting company. When a shipyard needs to move a massive steel block, or a petrochemical plant needs a 200-tonne vessel hoisted into place, or a construction site needs a crane that can reach where normal cranes cannot, Hiap Tong supplies the machine and the crew to do it. Its customers are other businesses, not consumers, and they pay by the day, week, or project for equipment and the skilled operators who run it.
The business splits roughly into two kinds of work. One is renting out cranes, prime movers (the heavy tractors that pull trailers), and other machinery. The other is hydraulic lifting and haulage: the delicate, engineered job of jacking up and sliding enormous objects that cranes alone cannot handle, like moving a whole module onto a barge or shifting heavy equipment inside a tight plant. The marine and petrochemical industries are demanding customers, because their loads are heavy, expensive, and unforgiving if something goes wrong. The appeal of a rental business is that Hiap Tong owns the expensive metal and the customer avoids buying it. Cranes and prime movers cost a lot, sit idle between jobs, and need maintenance and certified operators. Renting turns a big capital headache into a predictable daily bill. The catch for Hiap Tong is that it carries the same burden: it must keep a fleet in good shape and keep it utilized, because idle cranes still cost money. Utilization is everything in this game.
The company is listed on the Singapore Exchange's Catalist board, a market for smaller growth companies, so it is a modest-sized operator rather than a giant. Its fortunes track the health of Singapore's marine, petrochemical, and construction sectors, which rise and fall with oil prices, shipbuilding cycles, and infrastructure spending. Hiap Tong makes its money by keeping its fleet busy and charging for the muscle, precision, and experience that heavy lifting requires.
Saved answer 路 last researched 15 Nov 2026