Faizal Kottikollon

Faizal Edavalath Kottikollon is a United Arab Emirates-based Indian businessman, founder and chairman of KEF Holdings. He began as a scrap metal trader in Ajman, built Emirates Techno Casting into a global leader in foundry manufacturing for the oil and gas industry, sold it to Tyco International, and went on to build KEF's offsite-construction, healthcare and wellness businesses, including KEF Infra in India and Meitra Hospital in Kozhikode. Forbes Middle East named him among the top 100 Indian business leaders in the Arab world. ^{1 2}

Kottikollon was born on 6 July 1963 at Mahé, India. His father, P. K. Ahammed, is chairman of the Peekay Group of Companies. ^{1 3} He attended St. Joseph's Boys' Higher Secondary School, Kozhikode, took a BE in civil engineering at Manipal Institute of Technology (1983–87), an MBA at the T. A. Pai Management Institute (1988–90), and a Master of Science in industrial engineering at Bradley University, Illinois, in 1990. ¹ His wife Shabana joined the business in 2002, managing human resources and administration, and in 2007 the couple founded the Faizal & Shabana Foundation, a charitable trust working in education, healthcare and community development. ¹

With seed capital of US$5,000, Kottikollon started Al Ahamadi General Trading, a steel scrap business in Ajman, in 1995, and in 1997 set up Emirates Techno Casting, expanding into the Hamriyah Free Zone in Sharjah in 2002. Dubai International Capital bought 45 percent of the company for US$126 million in 2008, and Tyco International acquired the whole business in 2011–12 for a total of about US$400 million. ¹ He had established KEF Holdings as the group's parent in 2007 and registered it in Singapore in 2012, with its headquarters in Dubai's International Financial Centre. KEF Infra, founded in India in 2014 around a 42-acre industrial park in Krishnagiri, built projects including the Infosys office park in Bengaluru and merged with the SoftBank-backed Katerra in 2018. ^{1 2} In 2017 he established Meitra Hospital, KEF Healthcare's first tertiary care hospital, in Kozhikode, Kerala. ¹

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