Malning hf was founded on the 16th of January 1953. The company’s first location was an old school building in Kopavogur a suburb of Reykjavik, Iceland’s capital. With time the building was rebuild and increased with new facilities. In the year 1981 both the sales department and paint stocks where moved to a new location at Lynghals 2 in Reykjavik, but the rest of the company stayed in Kopavogur.
On the 13th of July 1987 a disaster took place when the factory and offices in Kopavogur burned down. This was both an emotional and financial loss. Raw materials and other stocks where damaged for millions of Icelandic kronas and the buildings of 2000 m2 where ruins. With great inside and swiftness it was possible to avoid the destruction of some of the production machinery and start some production only a couple of days after the disaster. First the facilities at Lynghals where used, but from October 1987 production and offices where situated at Funahöfdi in Reykjavik.
In 1999 Malning hf moved back to Kopavogur and settled down at Dalvegur 18 in a modern building designed by the Architect Ingimundur Sveinsson the same that designed the restaurant Perlan that lies on top of the warm water tanks in Reykjavik. Dalvegur 18 is tailor made for paint production and paint handling.
Soon after its foundation the company started to produce and market Spred Satin with the assistance from the Glidden Company in the US. This was the first water-based paint in Iceland a huge step for Icelandic consumers that only knew solvent-based paints at that time. The production of Spred Satin ended in 1973. Then we started our KOPAL program with an assortment of close to twenty water-based products today. Malning hf has from the beginning put great effort into product development and research. We have also emphasized close collaboration with raw material suppliers and producers such as JOTUN in Norway and Bona Kemi in Sweden. Malning hf is the only paint producer in Iceland that takes on a regular bases part in all kinds of research connected to paint and painted substrates with local and foreign research institutes.
In-house product development for our special conditions here in Iceland is the foundation in all of our research. We can here mention STEINVARI 2000 a special paint for concrete protection, the wood protection family KJÖRVARI and AKRYL-THOL a water-based product for preserving roofs made of corrugated iron.
Malning hf has in the past sold some paint to the US, The Faeroe Islands and Latvia. The company is a shareholder in the company P/F Strandamaling that is the only paint producer in the Faeroe Islands and produces paint on a license from Malning hf.
Malning hf is a family owned company. It has always been a priority to have employees of high quality in all divisions of the company. Today there are 40 employees working at Malning hf. Chairman of the Board is Valdimar Bergstad and the Executive manager is Baldvin Valdimarsson.
