Mulk Holdings boosts production of fire rated panels

UAE-based conglomerate Mulk Holdings is investing over $20mn to expand and upgrade its existing production line of Alubond U.S.A. aluminium composite panels (ACP) in Serbia.

The move will provide the brand with increased revenue of $70mn from the sale of the fire rated facade panels and help to maintain the company’s double digit growth, the company said in a statement.

Mulk Holdings recently hosted Serbian premier H.E. Tomislav Nikoli?; President of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, H.E. Mr. Igor Mirovic, where the Alubond Europe production facility is located and H.E. Milos Perisic, Serbian ambassador to UAE. The delegation visited the Mulk office and factory at the Hamriyah Freezone in Sharjah.

Mulk Holdings plans to set up a state of art ACP production line with A2 fire rating at the Alubond Europe premises in Serbia along with a coil coating line with a production capacity of 12,000 tons.

“We have seen rapidly growing demand for Alubond U.S.A. and its fire rated panels in the European region. At the same time, we wanted to bolster our pioneering fire rated panel technology at a global scale,” said Shaji Ul Mulk, founder and chairman of Mulk Holdings.

Local demand for fire rated facade panels has been rising since regulations were introduced to make them mandatory in new buildings following a series of fires in high rise towers in the UAE. The speed at which the fires spread over the outside of the buildings was blamed on the use of non fire rated panels.

In addition to the Serbia facility, new production bases planned in Sri Lanka and Saudi Arabia will increase Alubond U.S.A.’s global installed capacity of metal composite panels to over 25 million square metres and coil coating capacity to over 20,000 tonnes per annum.

Adnan Ul Mulk, the vice chairman, says fire rated panel technology is a game changer for the facades industry

“Alubond U.S.A. fire rated panels have been developed, due to the integrated in house knowledge of our R&D teams in plastics, coil coating and Extrusion divisions. Alubond U.S.A. panels have displayed what is truly possible as the future of building safety in the Middle East and around the world.”