| dbo:abstract |
CSR Limited is a major Australian industrial company, producing building products and having a 25% share in the Tomago aluminium smelter located near Newcastle, New South Wales. It is publicly traded on the Australian Securities Exchange. In 2021, it had over 3,000 employees and reported an after-tax profit of $146 million. The company has a diversified shareholding with predominantly Australian fund managers and retail owners. The group's corporate headquarters is in North Ryde, Sydney. Founded in Sydney in 1855 as the Colonial Sugar Refining Company at the Old Sugarmill, the company expanded into milling cane in Queensland and Fiji from the 1870s. It quickly became the most important miller and refiner in Australasia, with a virtual monopoly on Queensland and Fiji sugar production up to, respectively, 1989 and 1972. It also sold by-products of the sugar industry, from molasses to ethanol. In 2010, CSR sold its sugar and ethanol business, which had been given the name Sucrogen in 2009, to the Singaporean company Wilmar. As of 2015, the business is known as Wilmar Sugar. The company began to diversify into building products as early as 1942, with the construction of a plaster mill in Sydney, and in 1947 the company began manufacturing plasterboard. It acquired Bradford Insulation in 1959, which produced heat insulation materials for buildings, and currently has a substantial share of the insulation market in Australia and Asia. The company also produces fibre cement sheeting, aerated concrete products, bricks, permanent formwork for walls and systems to support plasterboard construction through Rondo, a joint venture with Boral. It spun off its interests in heavy building products to a separate listed company, Rinker Group, in 2003. In 2007, CSR established the Viridian glass company which it sold in 2019. (en) |
