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About CBK Hardware
For over one hundred years, a family’s surname has become synonymous with the country’s
biggest hardware supply company. Co Ban Kiat Hardware Incorporated of the Cobankiat family
has a regular client network of more than 1,500 industrial organizations, 1,600 traditional
community hardware stores, and 584 home building specialty chains of stores across Luzon
Visayas and Mindanao. This ever-growing conglomerate traces its humble roots to Manila
Chinatown, as a pioneer enterprise started by the family’s patriarch, Mr. Cobankiat, in 1920.
Despite the ruins of World War II, the business got back to its feet in 1948, rebuilding a storefront
from the very same spot where it was known for three decades.
While the Filipinos continued to rebuild their lives post-war, CBK Hardware saw the opportunity
to introduce the retail concept once unheard of in the hardware industry. Cobankiat Hardware
brought the first DIY business in Asia. The Hardware Workshop Store is the fruit of this endeavor.
CBK Hardware further cemented its legendary distribution channel with the creation of Coby’
Design Center in Edsa Shangri La in 1996, a specialty store that caters to the discriminating taste
of modern Filipinos.
In 1997, Mr. Johnny Cobankiat, the 4th generation Cobankiat leader, set another milestone for
the company when he brought the franchise of Ace Hardware USA to the Philippines and signed
up CBK Hardware as one of its major suppliers. This further expanded into delivering quality
world-class products nearer to families of Filipino overseas workers in the countryside.
A century’s excellence can quickly pass, and guided by the vision to be the largest network
supplier of the biggest global brands in the hardware industry, CBK Hardware resolves to source
the best products to supply its customers anytime and every time.
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