Alico is one of the Middle East's largest curtain walling companies. Al Shindagah found out more
Alico, based in Sharjah, is one of the Middle East’s largest curtain walling companies. It was founded in 1976 to manufacture aluminum doors and windows. During the 1980s the company implemented a program of diversification, which has resulted in it being able to offer a wide range of construction and industrial products. Alico also has a number of joint venture partnerships and licensing agreements with leading European and American manufacturers. A curtain wall is a barrier between a building’s concrete structure and the outside elements. Al Shindagah spoke to operations manager David Wray about the company.
What makes Alico stand out from the rest?
Alico is one of the most diverse companies of its kind. Many companies only provide curtain walling, but our philosophy at Alico is to be able to react quickly, with minimum dependence on suppliers. For example, every aluminum job is finished with a powder coating. To reduce our dependence on others, we installed our own powder coating line to offer high quality finishing in either Duranar and Valspar flouropolymer wet coating, or dry applied Polyester powder coating. Many aluminum companies don’t have this. It is this philosophy that gives Alico its independence. We also provide a comprehensive design service that allows us to manufacture tailor-made engineering solutions to the requirements of consultants and clients. We employ a team of fully qualified engineers and technicians to operate more than 60 computer-aided design stations.
Where does Alico do most of its business?
Alico has evolved into a truly international company. Our quality compares with European companies and the business environment in the UAE allows us to compete competitively on pricing and energy costs. We have many active projects here in the UAE, but Alico has completed projects in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, Jordan, Bahrain, Oman, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, India, Pakistan, Sudan, Nepal, Russia and the UK. And I have just returned from Uganda, where Alico secured the contract for a project worth US$2.6 million dollars.
What are Alico’s strengths?
We are able to perform jobs with values ranging from Dhs 10,000 to Dhs 50 million plus. However, our biggest strength comes from successfully completing unique projects, where the job is huge complicated and technically demanding, No matter what demands of the client, we at Alico pride ourselves on being able to engineer a solution for any customer.
What projects have you completed in Dubai?
We have worked on many prestigious projects, including Jumeriah Beach hotel, which utilized more that 24,00 square meters of curtain wall. We also worked on the National Bank of Dubai, which was one of the first unitized curtain wall projects in Dubai. Unitized curtain walling involves completing much of the work at the factory, then moving the curtain walling to site simply for installation. Our other projects include the Twin Towers Center, City Tower’s I and II, the Dubai Airport Freezone, the Wafi Residence, Kendah House and Marina Mall in Abu Dhabi.