Building it back up again didn’t take long, he says. “We got back into the market very quickly.”
These days the company has a large customer base that ranges from relocation of personal effects, sometimes just a carton or two, right up to huge and unwieldy loads such as, a few months ago, handling the onshore logistics of getting major components for the new Phuket incinerator from the ship to the site.
“Seventy per cent of the business is still personal relocation, but that’s falling,” Mr Bricknell says. This is to some extent a relief – the expectations of families are very high; everything has to be absolutely perfect.
That said, Pusco seems to get it right. Many of its personal effects shipments are repeat business, and a lot of the new business comes from referrals from existing customers.
Larger customers, though, are generally easier to deal with, says Mr Bricknell. And they don’t come much bigger than Maersk, the world’s largest shipping line.
Pusco is Maersk’s first choice partner along the Andaman coast for another aspect of its business; it has a fleet of drilling rigs it leases out to oil and gas exploration companies.
Every couple of years, new rigs built in Singapore are tested by Maersk in international waters off Phuket. Pusco assists Maersk with the logistics.
For instance, Pusco recently organised the air shipment of a 35-tonne component for one of the rigs. It then organised for the component to be taken by sea out to the rig.
Pusco moves people for Maersk, as well. The rigs have large crews that are constantly changing. Mr Bricknell and his staff organise supplies for them and, in one month, may carry 800 crew or more on or off the rig in an 85-seat shuttle boat.
A growing business for the company are hotel fit-outs. Mr Bricknell explains that many new hotels are fitted out with furniture, doors and decorations from places such as Bali or Phuket. All this has to be shipped by Pusco from the source to the hotel, then unpacked and installed.
A recent example was a large shipment from the Underwood factory in Phuket to a new hotel in Puerto Rico. Pusco organised “many shipping containers” plus 80 tonnes of air freight to fulfill that contract.
All of this is organised from Pusco’s small, cluttered offices on Thepkrassattri Rd, just north of Super Cheap. There’s a full-time staff of just eight people, though the company can call on as many as 30 casual workers depending on the size of the delivery.
Now Pusco is for sale. “I’m 63 this year and Sint [Suthirachartkul, his partner] is 65. We’re ready to retire. I want to spend more time time with my family, Jenjira, our seven-year-old daughter Natacha and my step-daughter Rim.”
The asking price, he says, is B20 million and already three multinationals have shown interest. There’s no rush to sell, however. “Our primary focus when looking at buyers will be our staff. They’ve been with us a long time.
“The future of Pusco is secured – we have a good customer base and a good reputation. And everyone needs logistics.”