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.

First African Holdings have been working with Aluminium Composite Material (ACM - commonly sold under brand names such as Alpolic, Hula-Bond and Alucobond) 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 FAH to get involved in building claddings, which led to the founding of the AfriClad division.

Visit our website - www.africlad.com

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.

After carrying out ad hoc maintenance on forecourt signage in the petroleum industry for many years, FAH decided it was high time to put its experience & national footprint of rigging teams to greater use & open a new maintenance department.

The maintenance department runs cyclical contracts tasked with the replacement of damaged signage components, ensuring illumination is burning correctly & the cleaning of forecourts / signage. It is also prepared to carry out reactive maintenance for any of its customers. Having been awarded a major national maintenance contract for Total early in 2011, we are already seeing the value that our service is bringing in maintaining our clients brands. Along with the new department came a state of the art data tracking system with trend analysis capabilities & a call centre for emergency callouts.

You may ask why it took us so long, but FAH has eventually started a rigging and maintenance operation. Officially christened First African Rigging, 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.