BJ Mercantile Inc. (BJM) celebrated its 50th year of doing business with a big celebration entitled The Making of a Gold that traced the company’s journey from 1974 as an importer of used engines to its transformation into a diversified conglomerate with interests in automotive, transport, logistics, property, petroleum and power generation.
Enterprising young couple Jimmy and Belen Lim, who used their initials to name the company, saw an opportunity to start a small business of importing used vehicles and trucks amidst the backdrop of economic strife and political turmoil of the 1970’s . Their instincts proved to be right as not long after they were able to expand their business to the importation and sales of new and used construction and industrial machineries.
The year 1980 saw them enter property development with BJ Land whose main business is the leasing of warehouses and other commercial and residential spaces. In 1995 they put up another real estate company, Meiling Development Corporation, to embark on the development of a 27-storey residential building in Manila and the Meiling Village in Quezon City.
As testament that BJM has mastered the ability of thriving in the face of adversity, the company established the auction in Malinta during the 1998 financial crisis. The auction served as an alternative platform to increase the value of BJM’s large inventories as well as to aid in the recovery of the industry. BJM became a household name as every auction was packed and successfully participated-in by eager and enthusiastic bidders.
In 2000, it put up Microvan Inc. headquartered in Subic Bay Freeport Zone, which continued the importation and trading of used construction machineries, trucks and trailers. This led to a spin-off company in 2011, Microvan Leasing, that is focused on the rental of cranes to construction projects all over the country. BJM also went into the importation of fuel in 2008 under Micro Dragon Petroleum Inc. and it sailed the oceans with Royal Dragon Ocean Transport thru 10 LCT vessels that cater to the mining and construction industries.
The event had added pomp as BJM also celebrated the 10th year anniversary of Scania in the Philippines. Scania, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of trucks and buses for heavy transport applications, appointed BJM as its exclusive dealer in 2014.
The San Simon Cold Storage, housed in San Simon, Pampanga, came into being in 2018 and has a capacity of 3,400 pallets and continues to grow to this day. And when Scania decided to discontinue its genset line in 2019, an opportunity arose to partner with AJ Power, which manufactures a wide range of diesel generating sets from 10kVA to 4376kVA for use in various applications.
“It has been quite a remarkable run for BJM during these past 5 decades and we would like to thank all our employees, partners and customers for their continued trust and support. But we are not yet done growing, we look forward to expanding our inventory and to entering other high growth businesses in the coming years,” said Leilani Lim Tan, Vice President of BJ Mercantile Inc.
It has begun to cast a wider net in the automotive sector as BJM has inked a deal in 2023 with Ashok-Leyland to exclusively carry its wide range of commercial vehicles. Just a few months ago, it forged a partnership with Japanese truck and bus manufacturer Fuso and it would also like to announce its entry into the passenger car market via a partnership with Hongqi Philippines. BJM will start marketing these vehicles in 2025 which augurs well for its road to 100 years.
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