With a fleet of around 450 trucks, Bilal General Transport is a major player in the UAE transport sector with diversified interests in aggregate supply, equipment rental and even contracting.
Guiding the development of this business empire with what might best be described as even-handed and astute pragamtism is the eponymous head of the group, Bilal Alibhai.
He says: “The groups like Ghantoot and Al Jaber have their own fleet, but as a standalone transport and equipment rental company, we are one of the largest, no doubt about it.”
“We do transport; the rental of yellow machines: JCBs, bulldozers, excavators; and we actually carry out contracting as well — not buildings but infrastructure-based operations like earthworks and reclamations.”
Some 80% of Bilal’s trucks spend their time ricocheting back and forth between the many aggregate quarries of Ras Al Khaimah and the projects of Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
Alibhai notes: “You name the project and we will have worked on it — directly or indirectly. If it’s not us, it’s through our client.”
As a “silent player” in the market, Alibhai claims the Atlantis the Burj Khalifa and Dubai Mall among the projects served by Bilal’s aggregates, and Unibeton as a client.
However, from the perspective of PMV Middle East, one of the more interesting details of Bilal’s activities to emerge is its decade-long relationship with Renault Trucks — and the brand’s ascendancy from a one-off purchase of a decade ago to a fleet stalwart that has carved out a particular niche for itself among Bilal’s burgeoning applications.
Alibhai explains: “When you are a large fleet owner, it is hard to be single-branded because you are likely to encounter supply problems. We’re always trying out new products, and that’s how we got started with Renault a decade ago. We got our first Renault truck at the end of 2004, and now Renault Trucks is one of our leading brands.”
Today, Renault Trucks vehicles make up about 30% of Bilal General Transport’s fleet, working across general transport and supply. Beyond the numbers, however, there is also an application-specific twist to Alibhai’s treatment of his Renault fleet — he heavily prefers them on his most off-road projects.
Alibhai highlights: “Renault is one of the few distinctive truck brands that actually has different ranges for different purposes; whereas many other brands simply have one truck for all the different activities.
“The Renault Kerax, which is the one that we’ve been buying —and the K-range that is just coming out — are built more for off-road (though they are good for on-road as well).
“We’ve found the Kerax very resilient, especially for off-road conditions — their bumpers are steel, they have higher ground clearance — and we prefer the Renault truck as vehicles because they are built like that.”
The toughness of the Kerax trucks is also important in terms of the lifecycle of the fleet at Bilal General Transport, where vehicles are either sold on, assuming they have a reasonable residual value, or are shifted steadily down a cascade of work from high-intensity tasks to low-intensity tasks as they age.
Alibhai explains: “Since we’re in transport and we have multiple activities, we can actually get many lives out of the trucks — so we first use them with the large tipper trailers and then, after five or six years, when we feel that the engine is getting less efficient, we move them down to a lower weight — like cement bulkers or flat trailers.”
Finally, when the productivity is no longer there, Bilal General Transport offers its older vehicles up for sale to secondary markets.
Here Renault Trucks have proved popular, particularly among fleet owners from Iraq, where similarly the ruggedness of the brand has earned a name for itself and became one of the most popular in the country.
Alibhai notes: “We had a very large fleet of Renaults before, but as we’ve replaced, we’ve had a lot of guys from Iraq express an interest in buying them, so we’ve said: ‘Yeah, of course, why not.’ It depends on how it works out. But the life of these trucks would easily be 10 years if they stayed within your fleet.”
The Iraqi demand for Renault Trucks has been so palpable that it has somewhat masked the scale of Bilal’s Renault purchases by ensuring a disproportionate exodus of older Renault vehicles from the fleet. However, this is but part of Bilal’s Renault story.
Many of the remainder of Bilal’s aged Kerax trucks have neither headed to Iraq nor stayed in the UAE, but instead made their way to Africa, and more specifically Ghana — where Bilal has been working for a number of years, and where the off-road proficiency of the Renault Trucks has again proved its usefulness.
If anything, Alibhai notes, the argument “gets even stronger, because there is more off-road and the roads are tougher there, and that is where Renault is very strong”.
Bilal first entered Ghana with Jan de Nul. “They had a port reclamation and needed someone to do the quarrying and transport the rock,” explains Alibhai. “They couldn’t find any local contractors who could do it, so they requested bids from a Belgian company, a Dutch company and us — because we worked extensively with them on the Waterfront and Palm Jumeirah, so they knew us very well. In the end, our cost structures were lower and they had the confidence in us, so we won it.”
The Jan de Nul contract lasted just two years, but Alibhai decided to stay on in the market, and today, Bilal has a fleet of around 60 trucks in Ghana, all of them Renault.
During the company’s most recent expansion of its projects in the country, the prerogative for older vehicles has been reversed.
Alibhai notes: “We had sent some older 6×4 tractor units, and those are still working, but we then acquired contracts that needed 8×4 rigid bodies — so we ordered 22 K-range trucks customised by Renault to our needs.
“They are 8×4 trucks with 440hp — so very powerful, and with an extra axle to help you go off-road. They were shipped from Europe to the UAE, had bodies installed by Gorica, and were shipped on from the UAE to Africa.”
With 60 Renault Trucks vehicles in Ghana and growing numbers of projects, the volume of Bilal’s Renault fleet in Ghana could soon overtake its existing 100 trucks in the UAE.
Rapid renewal
Bilal’s Renault fleet in the UAE is equally in a state of constant renewal, and as Alibhai notes: “Most recently, we received five 460hp K-range Renault Trucks in the UAE.”
Ever the prudent businessman, this first batch of five is not a full order from Alibhai, but once again a trial of the truck’s abilities — after a decade of Renault Kerax orders, the K-range is receiving no benefit of the doubt.
Alibhai notes: “We signed a large contract in 2014, but Renault was transitioning at the time — so we’ve taken these five trucks, and we we’ll run them in our fleet for six months, and when the decision comes to buy new trucks, we will have tested the new product.
“Even the first lot of Renaults we took in 2004, we took five trucks, ran them for six months, and then bought more; it’s the same.
“I’m sure the K-range truck is better than the last Renault truck, but I’ve got to compare it with the other trucks in my fleet — so we’re doing a report on fuel consumption, and all this sort of stuff every month.”
Beyond the brand
Alibhai favours the Renault because it does the job, supports off-road applications where his standard fleet is lacking, and faciliates either resale or a long, productive life.
What Africa seems to have taught him is that there is no real limit on a truck’s life.
He comments: “If you go to some countries in Africa, you’ll see 30-year-old trucks or 40-year-old trucks, so the lives are very long.
“Past a certain point, a truck’s value is the sum of its parts — it’s an asset that depreciates but then plateaus. If you go buy a 1978 truck or a 1980 truck, they’re the same price — because it’s literally worth the engine, the tyres, the axle and the body — that’s what people are paying for.
“What we try to do is get five years at the top end and move it down the value chain, or sell it and replace it — depending on the market conditions, and on what offer we get.”
Bearing this in mind, the fact that Renault Trucks has survived Alibhai’s meritocratic assessment is perhaps the best testament to the strength of the Kerax as a commercial vehicle. We can only wait and see if the K-range lives up to the reputation of its forebear.
Alibhai must surely be optimistic, but as he concludes: “Nothing is set in stone.”
A custom customer
As an early confidence vote for Renault Trucks, Bilal was in a position to both offer some of the most pertinent critique of the Kerax range when United Diesel first began distributing it in the UAE in 2004 and equally to receive the brand’s full attention when making requests for trucks tailored to its needs.
Alibhai recalls: “The first Kerax came here and the cabin was very springy (because it’s made to go on off-road), but the UAE is a bit different in the sense that you do still end up having to do a lot of highway driving — so we actually had to adjust the shock-absorbers in the cabin.
“We worked with our dealer, United Diesel, very closely — and when we made the first order we told them: ‘Okay, we need the aerodynamic kit.’
“Fortunately, we’re also in the position where 90% of the time we’re in contact with the principals themselves, because we’re a big enough customer — so we have worked with the dealer and the principal to find a solution. So we do get our feedback in, and they do tailor it.”
Sustainable supply chain
In the pre-crash heyday of 2006 through to 2008, the ability to pick and choose your brand and suppliers became something of a luxury, according to Alibhai.
He recalls: “You had to go multi-brand, even if you didn’t want to, because there was a waiting list for every truck.
“In 2007 and 2008, you had a shortage of equipment everywhere — you could sell a used piece of equipment or truck for the same price that you could buy a new one because people simply couldn’t wait six months.”
Used cranes were even more expensive than new cranes in 2006 and 2007, explains Alibhai, who notes: “If a new crane cost you one million dirhams, a used one would go for 1.2 million dirhams in an auction — because the guy knew he could take it, but it on a contract right away, and earn back that 200,000 dirhams or more in the next six months — when otherwise he’d just be waiting for a crane.”
This wasn’t necessarily always the case for Bilal, whose position in the market and strong dealer connections allowed it to avoid the more desperate squeezes in in the vehicle supply chain.
He explains: “Being one of the stronger players in the market, we always got preference from brands like Renault Trucks and the dealers like United Diesel, who knew that in the ups and downs we would be there, not just in the boom, but constantly buying and replacing our fleet.
“But everyone was overstretched, and had to prioritise committed clients over short-term ones. If you’d have walked in and said: ‘I need five trucks, because I’m building a villa’, versus my client of 10 years, I’d have prioritised him.”
