First African Holdings was founded as Aerodyne Sign Technology in 1998. Prior to that, it was a division of Aerodyne Technology, a defence contractor. Aerodyne specialised in Composite materials, which is why First African Holdings still has a fibreglass section. After a management buyout in 2002, the name of the company was changed to First African Signs, and changed to First African Holdings in 2010. Today, First African Holdings is a diversified manufacturer, involved in signage and building claddings. Our sales in the year to 30 September 2009 was R 46 Million.

Africlad have been working with Aluminium Composite Material (ACM - commonly sold under brand names such as Alpolic, Hula-bond, Alucobond etc.) since its inception. ACM is used as a cladding material in signage as well as building cladding applications. It was therefore a natural progression for the business to get involved in building claddings, which led to the founding of the Africlad division.

The Signage division of First African Holdings (previously First African Signs) is only 11 years old, but it is already rated as one of the top 4 signage manufacturers in Africa. The other companies in this group are between 20 and 80 years old, which surely says something of the speed with which First African Holdings established a name for itself.

You may ask why it took us so long, but FAH has eventually started a rigging and maintenance operation. Officially christened the FIRST RIGGING CORPORATION, the business was started to capitalize on the experience we gained from many years of managing signage and cladding installations, as well as maintenance. The last straw was the Cape Town Stadium, where none of our regular riggers were interested in helping us with the complicated task of installing nearly 14000 signs.