KEF Holdings to invest Dh1b in eight verticals
Company plans to start a tennis academy as a business venture in the UAE
Dubai: KEF Holdings, a UAE-based diversified conglomerate, has announced investments of Dh1 billion in the UAE and India, its officials said.
KEF Holdings, which is operating out of the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), is a multi-tiered holding company with interests across eight verticals that include infrastructure, healthcare, hospitality, education, investments, agriculture, metals and sports.
Faizal E. Kottikollon, Chairman of the company, said the projects include a five-star hotel, a 500-bed super-specialty hospital, an integrated manufacturing facility with pre-cast concrete technology, factories for making kitchens, toilets, doors and windows, a liberal arts university, organic farming projects and a tennis academy complex in the UAE.
Kottikollon, who founded KEF Holdings Ltd., an integrated valve manufacturer and provider of steel castings, said the new high-tech manufacturing facility, specialising in precast concrete technology, is the first project in the pipeline.
The 500-bed state-of-the-art healthcare complex, which is being built as a joint venture with the PeeKay Group, a leading business group in Kerala and Dr. Ali Faizal, a renowned cardiologist in Kozhikode, will require an investment of Rs5 billion.
The luxury hotel, to be set up on 30 acres at Chelambra in Kozhikode with a modern convention centre with a capacity for 3,500 people, will require over Rs8.5 billion in investment.
The conglomerate has also set up an investment arm, KEF Investments, that is involved in wealth management, financial planning, estate planning, property management, tax planning, risk management, strategic partnerships, private equity, venture capital and real estate development and investment.
Today, Kottikollon, whose wealth is estimated to be in the range of $300 million (Dh1.1 billion), is starting a new phase in his career as a businessman and marks a totally different direction of the company from its previous businesses.
The factories, involving an investment of Rs3 billion, will be built in Kochi and other cities. They will have integrated manufacturing facilities with pre-cast concrete technology and plants for making kitchens, bathrooms, doors and windows.
Kottikollon said the high-tech, quality-controlled precast facilities would be a game-changing initiative by ensuring enhanced quality and expediting on-time project execution.
Combined, the three projects are expected to create up to 10,000 jobs.
Kottikollon, a US-educated Indian engineer, started a scrap metal company – Al Ahamadi General Trading Company in the UAE in 1995 and later set up a foundry for industrial valves and steel castings, Emirates Techno Casting (ETC) in 1997.
ETC later developed its own technology for the industry to create an integrated facility at a 100,000 square metres manufacturing facility in Hamriyah Free Zone, that was named among the world’s top three most technologically advanced foundries.
KEF Holdings serves over 70 clients including leading market players in the oil and gas industries such as Takreer, Enoc, Qatar Petroleum, KOC, PDO, Qatar Gas and Tyco.
In September 2008, Dubai International Capital acquired a 45 per cent stake in the company for $126 million. Last year, Tyco, a $20 billion American corporation bought the company for $400 million (Dh1.46 billion), which marked Faizal Kottikollon’s exit from the foundry business he founded in 1997.
