Causeway Link: How a Malaysian family built the company behind the yellow ‘smiley' buses and takes it public

Straits Times

2 days ago

Malaysian businessman Lim Han Weng and his son Lim Chern Chuen have built the company behind the Causeway Link buses into a multimillion-dollar business. ST PHOTO: SHINTARO TAY
SINGAPORE – The bright yellow Causeway Link (CW) buses that move thousands of people across Johor and Singapore daily are known for the smiley faces plastered on their facade, but their origin story wasn't quite as cheery.
Back in the early 2000s, Malaysian businessman Lim Han Weng frequently commuted across the Causeway to oversee his trucking and bus assembly businesses on both sides. He would sometimes join long, snaking queues of exhausted commuters at Kranji MRT station in the evening, waiting for hours for the non-air-conditioned SBS Transit service 170 buses to get them home to Johor.
A former car salesman turned logistics entrepreneur, Mr Lim, who is also a Singapore permanent resident, saw both a business opportunity and a pressing problem. Determined to ease commuter woes, he approached the Malaysian authorities and managed to secure a licence to offer cross-border rides – but only up till the Causeway.
Then in 2002, he went to Singapore's Land Transport Authority (LTA) armed with photos of winding queues and first-hand accounts from frustrated commuters to make his case. But it took more than a year of persistent lobbying, including meetings with then Transport Minister Yeo Cheow Tong and then Trade and Industry Minister George Yeo, and a promise to LTA that he would not use 'broken buses' in Singapore to finally receive the licence.
That made his company, Handal Indah, the first Malaysian operator approved to run cross-border bus rides.
In March 2025, this same company that started with a small fleet of CW buses two decades ago went public on Bursa Malaysia as HI Mobility. Its initial public offering (IPO) saw strong investor interest, with the public tranche oversubscribed 6.6 times. Its market capitalisation stood at around RM630 million (S$192 million) as at June 2.
'Back then, we were not thinking of IPOs or making money. It's about helping people,' Mr Lim, 73, recalled during an interview with The Straits Times at his Kranji Green office. He was joined by his son, HI Mobility chief executive Lim Chern Chuen.
'A lot of successful businessmen don't want to be in this business because it is capital intensive. You won't make much money because the fare is government-regulated. Dealing with drivers can also be problematic,' he added.
Mr Lim also launched bus services within Johor out of a sense of public service. He recalled a journalist who, irked by chronic delays for local buses that made him late for work, pestered him to step in.
What finally moved him was a news article the journalist shared – about a student who arrived for an exam two hours late because the bus never showed up on time. 'By hook or by crook, we need to help them,' Mr Lim said.
A younger Mr Lim Han Weng posing in front of his fleet after securing the licence in 2003 to run cross-border bus rides under the Causeway Link brand.
ST PHOTO: JAMES JACKSON CROUCHER
Early hurdles
First, he had to overcome bankers' scepticism about the profitability of a public transport venture.
This was even though Mr Lim is no stranger to the transportation business. He had built up cross-border trucking company Yinson Transport, the first business he co-founded with his wife in 1984. After he diversified into marine logistics – supplying offshore support vessels to oil and gas companies – he took the company public as Yinson Holdings in 1996 and spun off the less profitable trucking arm in the process.
Yinson Holdings, now a global energy infrastructure and technology company, had a market capitalisation of more than RM6 billion as at June 2.
Yet even for this self-made tycoon, securing loans was not straightforward. His banker demanded guarantees and imposed higher interest rates. 'I scolded the banker,' Mr Lim said in jest – but in the end, he got the financing he needed.
The next challenge? Finding drivers.
Mr Lim recalled having to scour rural Felda settlements and shopping malls to recruit jobless youth. Training a licensed bus driver typically costs around RM5,000 and takes five or six months, he said, but retaining them was tough.
Singapore's SBS Transit and SMRT regularly host job fairs in Johor hotels, enticing drivers with free meals and attractive salaries in Singapore dollars. 'That's why we have to train many drivers. Some stay with us. Those who want to make more money will leave to work in Singapore, but they sacrifice in terms of sleep,' Mr Lim said.
He also showed a thoughtful side as a boss. When asked why he added smiley faces on the bus decals, he said it was his way to pacify passengers who complained that his drivers were not smiling.
In Europe, it is common for drivers to greet passengers with a smile, he said. 'But we don't have this culture here. How to get drivers to smile every day?'
While Mr Lim and his wife remain the majority shareholders of HI Mobility, they have handed over day-to-day operations to two of their children. Their son Lim Chern Chuen, 44, came on board as strategy and planning director in 2007 after stints at Accenture and KPMG in Australia, and was appointed CEO in 2024. Their daughter Lim Chern Fang, a Singaporean, joined the company in 2003 and now serves as its chief marketing officer.
Mr Lim Chern Chuen has served as HI Mobility's CEO since 2024.
ST PHOTO: SHINTARO TAY
In FY2024, HI Mobility achieved RM207.7 million in revenue, with scheduled bus services – including cross-border, intercity and intracity routes – making up 91.8 per cent of earnings. The rest came from its chartered bus services, repair and maintenance services, and advertising space rental on the buses.
Surviving Covid-19
Mr Lim said the bus passenger business has always been cash-flow positive despite a thin margin – after paying taxes to both governments. But its resilience was severely tested during Covid-19 – when revenue crashed to almost zero overnight following border closures and Malaysia's movement control order in 2020.
Causeway Link was authorised to offer cross-border rides under the Vaccinated Travel Lane scheme from late 2021.
ST PHOTO: LIM YAOHUI
Although the company was later allowed to run cross-border trips under the Vaccinated Travel Lane scheme in late 2021, passenger numbers and routes were very limited. In those two challenging years, the company suffered losses exceeding RM30 million, Mr Lim said, and he had to inject personal funds to keep it afloat.
No retrenchments were made but everyone took a pay cut, Mr Lim Chern Chuen said. Some drivers were redeployed to help with goods delivery for merchants, while others took the chance to upskill. The key lesson learnt was the need to diversify operations, and to stay agile enough to ride on new opportunities, he added.
After the pandemic ended, the company had to raise ticket prices to recoup some losses, but cross-border rides remain fairly affordable. Trips from Kranji MRT station to Johor Bahru Customs are priced at $2.60, while departures from Newton Circus and Queen Street Bus Terminal cost $4.60 and $4.80, respectively. Return trips from Johor Bahru are charged the equivalent amounts in ringgit.
Revenue from the cross-border segment surged from RM4 million in FY2022 to RM122 million in FY2024, making it the largest revenue contributor, accounting for 58.9 per cent of total earnings.
Commuters queueing outside Kranji MRT station to board the Causeway Link bus to Johor Bahru during the evening peak hour.
ST PHOTO: BRIAN TEO
Ridership on cross-border buses reached close to 16 million passengers in FY2024, far exceeding pre-pandemic levels. For this financial year, passengers departing from Singapore are expected to contribute almost 49 per cent of HI Mobility's revenue, according to its IPO prospectus.
Revenue from the intra-city segment also jumped from RM19.6 million in FY2022 to RM65.9 million in FY2024. Many of such government-contracted intra-city bus services in Johor, Melaka and the Klang Valley are now run under a gross-cost contracting model, where the company receives a fixed fee for providing punctual, reliable services without bearing revenue risks. Mr Lim Chern Chuen said this arrangement has helped improve the company's profit margins.
Opportunities and risks
Mr Lim Chern Chuen said that while workers who commute daily across the border remain a key segment, the revenue growth in recent years has also been driven by more recreational travellers from Singapore taking advantage of the favourable exchange rate to shop and enjoy services in Johor. The introduction of QR code immigration clearance also eased bottlenecks at the border, which encouraged more people to make day trips, he added.
He believes that when more businesses move to the Johor-Singapore Special Economic Zone in the future, another substantial customer segment will be unlocked – business travellers who have to shuttle between their offices on both sides regularly.
The opening of the Johor Bahru-Singapore Rapid Transit System (RTS) Link in end-2026, however, is acknowledged as a risk factor in HI Mobility's prospectus. But Mr Lim Chern Chuen is optimistic as it could also result in a bigger pie as people switch from driving across, easing congestion and making day trips more attractive.
'Even though the RTS could be seen as being cannibalising in some ways, we think there are a lot more opportunities,' he said.
One opportunity lies in offering more supplementary bus services to ferry RTS passengers to and from the Woodlands North and Bukit Chagar terminals. He also believes that as more travellers switch to the light rail instead of driving, traffic congestion on the Causeway and Second Link will ease, which could improve commuters' experience on the CW buses and attract more riders.
'If we can reduce the travel time, many more people will travel. There's just so much latent demand,' he said.
Preparing for the future
To tackle driver shortage, the Lim family has invested in autonomous vehicle (AV) technology through another business, Yinson GreenTech. For example, they are backing a Singapore-based AV technology start-up, which has been running an autonomous bus at Ngee Ann Polytechnic – albeit with a safety driver on board.
While replacing gig drivers with AVs is often politically sensitive, for public transport – where there is a genuine labour crunch – this could be a 'perfect starting point', Mr Lim Chern Chuen said.
HI Mobility has been adding electric buses to its fleet to align with Malaysia's energy transition targets.
PHOTO: HI MOBILITY
Looking ahead, Mr Lim Chern Chuen said he will grow the fleet size from 683 buses pre-IPO to around 800 in the near term. The company has also been adding electric buses to its fleet to align with Malaysia's energy transition targets.
Beyond transportation, the Lim family is investing in electric vehicle (EV) infrastructure. They operate a large EV charging network under two brands, chargEV and DC Handal. They have also been awarded a government contract to manufacture and distribute standardised number plates, which are equipped with RFID (radio frequency identification) technology and anti-cloning holograms, for zero-emission vehicles in Malaysia.
To improve first- and last-mile connectivity, they piloted a demand-responsive ride-sharing service called Kumpool in Johor and the Klang Valley. The app allows bus passengers to book affordable van rides to take them home from the bus stops on the trunk roads.
While these ventures remain private for now, they could eventually be folded under HI Mobility as the business scales, said the Lims. This will help them diversify beyond bus services and unlock greater value for shareholders.
As to whether the company will raise ticket prices further to fatten its profits and boost share prices, Mr Lim Chern Chuen said keeping bus journeys affordable remains his priority.
It is a principle deeply rooted in his father's founding mission, and one that continues to guide his decisions, and gives his passengers a reason to smile as brightly as the smiley faces on the buses.
Cheong Poh Kwan is Assistant Business Editor at The Straits Times.
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