The First Hundred Years

M.A.H.Y. Khoory was founded as a trading enterprise and has grown into a diversified UAE-based business group operating across multiple sectors.

Abdulla Khoory and Abdulla Sharafi were cousins raised as brothers in a single household. A London merchant they worked for taught them double-entry accounting, and they began by supplying tarpaulin and cloth to a town that still lived in tents. When they later acquired the business, their first move was AKAS ghee, a brand built on their initials.

M.A.H.Y. Khoory became the UAE's official distributor and partner for Grundfos, a leading Danish-origin manufacturer of water pumping technology. Grundfos systems supplied by the Group now run in landmarks including the Burj Khalifa, Dubai International Airport Terminal 3 and the Louvre Abu Dhabi.

After the partition of British India in 1947, the family rebuilt its trade from Karachi, shipping rice and moving goods between regional ports. Back in Dubai, the next generation took the business out of foodstuffs and into machinery, the equipment a young country would be built with.

“After the partition of British India in 1947, the family rebuilt its trade from Karachi, shipping rice and moving goods between regional ports. Back in Dubai, the next generation took the business out of foodstuffs and into machinery, the equipment a young country would be built with”

The General Motors dealership marked the Group's entry into the automotive sector in the UAE. It operated until the 1980s, when the family sold it to help fund the first paper mill, and the automotive business was re-established as M.A.H.Y. Khoory Automotive in 2024.

Air conditioning under the Antar name followed and became the company's largest line, and the company serviced everything it sold. The family also put up its own ten-storey building on the creek, for a time the tallest in Dubai.

The Group opened its Al Ain business, supplying pumps and water solutions to the eastern region of Abu Dhabi. Today it serves farms, industry and infrastructure, from irrigation pumps on Jebel Hafeet to chilled-water systems at Tawam Hospital.

The same year, Abdul Hamid Khoory, a son of the founder, took charge of the business. Known as the risk-taker of his generation, he would lead it from trading into manufacturing.

The Group became an authorised partner and distributor of a renowned British-origin diesel engine manufacturer, expanding its portfolio into robust diesel engine technology and dependable power generation solutions.

The Dubai business was registered as Mohammad and Abdulla Haji Yousuf and Company, after Abdulla Khoory and his elder brother Mohammad. Over time the name was shortened to its initials: M.A.H.Y. Khoory.

Al Khoory Engineering was formed to deliver turnkey pumping and electro-mechanical solutions for infrastructure and building services projects. Its control panel and fabrication work continues today within the Group's Machinery Workshop & Service Centre.

Returning from a pump-buying trip to Scandinavia, Abdul Hamid saw an opportunity: Dubai had no trees, but it had waste paper. He proposed that the family build a paper mill, though the business had never manufactured anything before.

Union Paper Mills was established as the UAE's first recycled paper mill, turning waste paper into containerboard for the corrugated packaging industry and supporting sustainable packaging and circular economy initiatives.

The early years tested the company's resolve. Box makers stayed away, wary that a mill would soon start making boxes of its own. Union Paper Mills promised to make the paper and never the box, and kept its word, while its team raised output to 120 tonnes a day from a plant rated for 100.

EIEM was formed to meet the UAE's growing need for pumps and pumping systems. As the sole UAE agent for ESPA, it reaches the market through a network of more than 300 dealers.

The Group signed an exclusive distributorship agreement with ESPA, a Spanish manufacturer of pumping systems, broadening its range for residential and building-services applications. ESPA now holds an estimated 80–90% of the UAE's villa pump market.

Licence issued on 29 July 1996. Greenland supplies pumps, HVAC and wastewater equipment across the UAE, representing Franklin Electric, Hisense and Sulzer.

Every building with water on an upper floor has a pump moving it there. A pump doing its job is one nobody thinks about, noticed only on the day it stops. For decades in this country, that pump was very often supplied by the Group.

Clean Earth provides waste management and environmental services, reflecting the Group's sustainability focus. Today it converts used cooking oil, collected from kitchens by Green Arabia, into biofuel.

Greenland Transport provides transportation and logistics services exclusively for M.A.H.Y. Khoory Group companies, moving raw materials, paper and finished goods across all seven emirates and into Oman.

Al Mehwar supplies pumping solutions to residential, commercial and government projects. Its Teral pumps serve projects ranging from Saqr Hospital's emergency block to residential towers across Dubai.

Nothing like Palm Jumeirah had been attempted anywhere, and the Group was determined to supply it. It won the project, and the villas along the Palm's fronds run on its pumps.

Senan Industry manufactures plastic containers, jerry cans and industrial packaging for the lubricant, chemical and food industries. Working with German machinery and only virgin HDPE, it moulds its own caps, so every can and closure is matched.

PM2 started at 300 tonnes per day, taking total capacity to 400 tonnes per day.

Salahuddin Sharafi joined in 1983 with a business degree from Arizona and worked his way from spare parts into finance through the mill's hardest years. Placed at the head of the company in 1999, he saw the mill as its future and ordered the second machine in 2003.

The collaboration enhanced the Group's capabilities in Variable Frequency Drives (VFDs), motor control systems and broader industrial automation, supporting more energy-efficient pumping.

The Solid Waste Management Division began collecting waste wood and processing it into biomass fuel.

Wood that nobody wanted, collected free from joinery workshops, is burned to raise the steam that dries the paper. A turbine was later set between the furnace and the mill, so the same fire makes electricity as well.

The collaboration with an established Indian-origin producer of pumps and engines broadened the Group's range of pumping and engine solutions for industrial and large-scale infrastructure applications.

Al Dhafra Paper Manufacturing produces recycled paper products, complementing the Group's paper and packaging operations.

The collaboration enhanced the Group's residential portfolio with Ariston's electric, central and solar water-heating systems and energy-efficient home comfort solutions.

Pure Energy provides solar panel installation projects for residential, commercial and industrial customers. Its work includes 3,778 kWp of on-grid and off-grid systems for Etisalat, and in 2026 it began a 20 MWp solar project.

The Abu Dhabi mill's single machine produces 250,000 tonnes of paper a year, more than the Dubai mill makes on two, and the site generates its own power from an 11.93 MW gas turbine.

With two mills and three paper machines producing more than a thousand tonnes a day, the venture that had tested the company most became the largest thing it does.

The Group's service department, today the Machinery Workshop & Service Centre, expanded from after-sales support into a revenue-generating unit, offering machinery workshop services to external clients. It now holds 60 maintenance contracts, including with Dubai Municipality, and is a Grundfos Authorized Service Partner with a GOLD audit result.

Green Arabia began providing waste collection services, starting with The Dubai Mall and Emaar's New Year's Eve clean-up in Downtown Dubai. Eight years on, it manages 2,000 tonnes of waste a day for more than 8,090 customers.

To feed the mills, the Group built a collection network across the country. A fleet that collects waste paper can collect everything else too, separating what can be recycled and sending only what remains to landfill. Green Arabia turned that capability into a business of its own.

Union Wood Works manufactures composite wood blocks for industrial, logistics and packaging applications. Made from waste wood on Italian IMAL machinery and cut to size, its blocks give pallet makers an alternative to solid timber.

A leading corrugated carton manufacturer in Ajman, NPI reinforced the Group's packaging operations. Its BHS corrugator produces around 4,000 tonnes of 3-ply and 5-ply board and cartons a month.

Paper became cartons in Ajman. Offcuts and waste wood became wood blocks. At the mill, the city's treated wastewater replaced water bought clean. The industry now calls this a circular economy. Here it was simply the most practical way to run a mill in a country with no trees, arrived at one decision at a time.

The Group formalised its waste recovery operations as a dedicated division. Licensed to process up to 250 tonnes of waste wood a day, it has since extended recovery to refuse-derived fuel and recyclable plastics.

USPS was established in Dubai as the Group's pallet and industrial packaging company, making wooden pallets, crates and dunnage for petrochemical, cable, FMCG and defence customers.

USPS specialises in pallet manufacturing and logistics support for supply chain operations. As part of the PalletBiz network, which spans 13 countries, it produced 345,000 wooden packaging units last year.

The business represents the Group's expansion into automotive sales, distribution and after-sales services, with more than 120 people across showrooms and service centres in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

Pumps keep a city running, but cars are what people see. The General Motors franchise had once made the Khoory name known to the public, and returning to cars brought that visibility back.

A HAAS wood-processing line began supplying biomass fuel to Union Paper Mills and wood chips to Union Wood Works, at up to 25 tonnes an hour.

In October 2024, M.A.H.Y. Khoory Automotive became the exclusive UAE distributor for Dongfeng. A year later, Dongfeng recognised it for Excellent Partnership, one of very few dealers selected from more than 200 worldwide.

Salahuddin Sharafi first travelled to China to study its car industry in 1993 and followed its progress for three decades. At an electric vehicle exhibition in Norway, he saw how far Chinese manufacturers had advanced in technology, and the Group pursued the Dongfeng agency.

In January 2025, MK Motors became the OMODA & JAECOO distributor for Abu Dhabi and Al Ain. In 2026 it received the brand's Best Growth Award.

M.A.H.Y. Khoory Trading brought fabrication and control panel manufacturing together with its machinery workshop services under one leadership, creating a single integrated service offering.

M.A.H.Y. Khoory Automotive opened a new flagship Dongfeng showroom at Oasis Mall, expanding the brand's retail presence in Dubai. The same year, Dubizzle named the business Showroom of the Month.

Green Arabia plans to open a branch in Qatar, extending its waste management services to a new market. At home, a 48,000 sq ft waste recovery plant in Jebel Ali is in development.

M.A.H.Y. Khoory Automotive plans to open a new facility in Al Ain, adding to its existing locations in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

A new state-of-the-art corrugated packaging facility in KEZAD, Abu Dhabi, will extend the Group's integrated paper and packaging value chain. Built to hygiene standards aligned with HACCP, it is designed to produce 4,500 tonnes a month for food, pharmaceutical and FMCG customers.

Green Arabia plans to open a branch in Jordan and to add landscaping and facility management to its services.

The Recyclable Waste Management Division plans to add two recycling and material consolidation yards by 2027, bringing its UAE network to 11. It already collects around 42,000 tonnes of recyclable materials a month.

Green Arabia plans to add manpower supply to its range of services.

A fourth paper machine is planned for commissioning in Abu Dhabi around 2030, adding the capacity to grow into new markets and higher-value grades such as white top test liner.