CSR Limited

CSR Limited
Company typeSubsidiary
ASX: CSR
IndustryBuilding materials
Founded1855; 169 years ago (1855) in Sydney, Australia
FounderEdward Knox Edit this on Wikidata
Headquarters,
Area served
Australia, New Zealand, United States
Key people
  • Julie Coates (MD)
  • John Gillam (Chairman)
ProductsPlasterboard, bricks, insulation, aluminium
ServicesConstruction
RevenueIncrease A$2.32 billion (2019)[1]
Increase A$265 million (2019)
Increase A$146 million (2021)
Number of employees
~3,000 (2021)
ParentSaint-Gobain
Websitecsr.com.au

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.[2]

French multinational Saint-Gobain acquired CSR for A$4.5 billion (US$2.95 billion) in 2024.[3]

  1. ^ "CSR Financial Results" (PDF). Csr.com.au. Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 March 2015. Retrieved 9 May 2015.
  2. ^ "CSR to buy Pilkington Australasia for $690m". The Sydney Morning Herald. 29 June 2007. Archived from the original on 11 August 2022. Retrieved 29 September 2020.
  3. ^ "France's Saint-Gobain strikes agreement to buy Australia's CSR". Reuters. 26 February 2024.