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Friday Nov 15, 2024
Saturday, 20 December 2014 00:43 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
Macktiles as the name suggests is dedicated to producing floor tiles and is focused on producing top notch ceramic glazed floor tiles from materials sourced locally and decorated using the highest quality glasses and ceramic pigments imported from world leaders in Italy and Spain. A product that is 100% manufactured locally using the best raw materials available in the island; Macktiles boasts exceptional quality and a diverse range of designs, available exclusively from the company. Elaborating further Mizver Makeen revealed, “About 50% of the local tile demand is supplied by the local industry while the balance is imported. However, with the launch of Macktiles, Macksons Holdings can now endeavour towards narrowing this gap and decrease the quantities of tiles imported into our country and save the outflow of our valuable foreign currency.”
Speaking about the premise for starting such a venture Mizver Makeen said, “Macksons Holdings started as a trading venture in hardware and then progressed to the paint industry. Now we deal with general hardware, paints, plastics, packing materials and gift-ware and from being an importer of tiles we thought we should change the paradigms and try to manufacture our own tiles as there are enough raw materials available in the country.”
He further went onto say, “It is a fact that the raw materials available in Sri Lanka, when it comes to producing floor tiles, is world class and is comparable to that of Italy or Spain. As such, the material in Sri Lanka can be defined as the best. And we are happy that we have strived to use good quality Sri Lankan minerals to bring and change the total spectrum of how tiles should be offered to the Sri Lankan consumer.”
Pooja Umashankar, the brand ambassador for Macktiles also made a special appearance during the launch and affirmed her support for the brand. She expressed her admiration for the family and thanked Macksons Holdings for making her part of this new venture.
Utilising machinery and technology directly sourced from Italy, the premier destination for tile manufacturing, the company has a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility situated in Bandaragama, easily accessible via the newly built Southern Expressway. The high-tech turnkey facility that is fully automated, is situated in a spacious 30 acre land and employs around 200-300 workers who oversee the production of tiles. Built according to international standards, all raw materials used and each tile undergo stringent quality control measure to ensure that the end product is of the highest quality.
Precision digital printing is used to further ensure the uniformity of the tiles produced, while Macktiles boasts of a variety of tiles that range from rough textures to lighter ranges, to a multitude of colours and patterns. Attesting to the quality of the product, the company has already received many requests from overseas and have expanded their market to cover Maldives, Mauritius and Seychelles. In the future, Macktiles hopes to contribute significantly to the foreign revenue of Sri Lanka by becoming a strong export entity.
Macksons Holdings, the holding company of Macktiles, has a proud legacy of more than four decades. Founded by Al Haj A.W.M. Makeen, the company was first established in 1970 with the City Trading Company, which traded building materials and paints. Diversifying and growing from strength to strength through the decades, the group is now acclaimed as one of the biggest entities in the country while Multilac has become a household name and is one of the most sought after paint brands in the country.
The Board of Macksons Holdings comprises of Milfer Makeen (Group Chairman), Mizver Makeen (Group Managing Director), Shimmer Milfer (Group Chief Executive Officer) and Mizha Mizver Ismail (Group Chief Operating Officer) while the third generation of the family has also come forward to take forward the vision of the group.
