Brickworks Limited

Brickworks Limited

Type	Public
Traded as	ASX: BKW
Industry	Building and Construction Materials
Founded	Australia (June 21, 1934)
Headquarters	Horsley Park NSW, Australia
Key people	Lindsay R. Partridge MD & Alexander J. Payne CFO
Revenue	A$724 million (to July 31, 2015)
Operating income	A$166 million (to July 31, 2015)
Number of employees	1478 FTE (2014)
Website	www.brickworks.com.au

Brickworks Limited is an Australian owned and based group of companies engaged in the design, development, manufacturing, marketing, distribution, and sales of a variety of building materials. In 2014, major brick competitors CSR and Boral merged to create Boral CSR Bricks Pty Ltd.

Brickworks was founded on June 21, 1934 in NSW, in an effort to protect the Australian brick manufacturing industry from the wrath of The Great Depression. Initially, the company alternated from public to private but has remained public since 1939. As a manufacturer of building materials, the company eventually became involved in property sales, property trust, and waste management. This led to the development of The Land and Development Group which became the second main part of Brickworks Limited business model, with the first main part being The Building Product Group, and the third main part being The Investments Group.

The Great Depression had a severe impact on the brick manufacturing industry. In response, to make brick manufacturing more efficient and economic, the NSW Brick Master’s Association dispensed unnecessary yards. The Brickworks Limited company was created, and focused on marketing and distributing bricks and clay products.

William King Dawes, who was General Manager of Austral Bricks and managing director of Brickworks, spearheaded a newly established council - The Council of Brick Manufacturers. As chairman, Dawes combined Brickworks Limited with various companies and independent brickyard owners in a 10-year agreement to secure the companies viability. Part of this agreement was an imposed fee to cover marketing, distribution, and selling expenses of bricks and other clay products. In 1935, the St. Peters Agreement was signed which divided Sydney into zones serviced by local brickyards. A yard that did not survive the depression, Manly Brick & Tile Company, still had millions of bricks in inventory that were then purchased by Clay Industries Limited, a Brickworks Limited subsidiary.

In 1936, Austral Bricks revised its Articles of Association to become privatized, and Brickworks Limited expanded its capacity by acquiring State Brickworks from the New South Wales Government. In the same year, 14 tile roofing companies joined forces to control the quantity of production against the demand to prevent the decline in prices and formed Roof Tiles Limited. In the following years, Brickworks Limited bought a number of assets, properties, and companies that were running out of resources. In 1939, during wartime, a strict price control on bricks and lending restrictions on cooperative societies was implemented, and the Brickworks Limited reverts to a public company.