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KEF Company opens HQ in DIFC

The KEF Company, the latest venture of UAE-based industrialist Faizal E. Kottikollon, opened its corporate head office at the Dubai International Financial Center, or DIFC.

P.K. Ahmed and Ahamed Hajee, two leading Indian businessmen, cut the ceremonial ribbon to mark the soft launch of the head office recently.

Kottikollon, the founder and chief executive officer of KEF Holdings, the UAE-based valve manufacturer, in which US flow control giant Tyco International took a major stake in 2011, said this new venture would seek to provide the best-in-class technology and resources at an affordable cost that would directly benefit the common man.

He said the new company would primarily focus on eight separate verticals that include infrastructure, healthcare, hospitality, education, investments, agriculture, metals and sports. The new DIFC office will also serve as the headquarters of the Shabana & Faizal Foundation, an initiative spearheaded by Shabana Faizal with a focus on educational and community welfare activities in the UAE and India.

Some of the new projects being undertaken by the company include the launch of advanced precast concrete technology in Kochi, a world-class 500-bed tertiary care hospital in Kozhikode, and boutique hotels in Mangalore, Karnataka and Kozhikode.

The hospital is being built as a joint venture with the PeeKay Group, a leading business group in Kozhikode and Dr Faizal Ali, a renowned cardiologist in Kozhikode. The hospital will focus on cardiac sciences, neurosciences and orthopedics, along with a world-class rehabilitation programme, and will aim to be a centre of excellence in its specialties and will emerge as the best hospital in South India.

The precast building plant is envisaged as a high-tech, quality-controlled facility that promises to be game-changing initiative for Kerala’s infrastructure sector by ensuring enhanced quality and expediting on-time project execution.

The Shabana & Faizal Foundation is actively involved in various programmes, mainly educational, throughout India and the UAE. The foundation actively funds and supports activities designed to improve and better the lives of the under-privileged. Recently, an endowment of Dh5 million was made by the foundation to the American University of Sharjah.

— issacjohn@khaleejtimes.com