Thiess Pty Ltd is an international mining services company based in

Brisbane Brisbane ( ; ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia, with a ...

, Australia. Established in the 1930s as Horn & Thiess, the company later became Thiess Bros and Thiess Contractors before being bought by Leighton Holdings in 1983 to become part of the

CIMIC Group CIMIC Group Limited (formerly Leighton Holdings) is an engineering-led construction, mining, services and public private partnerships leader working across the lifecycle of assets, infrastructure and resources projects. History Founded in 194 ...

. Thiess' headquarters are located in the Thiess Centre in

South Bank The South Bank is an entertainment and commercial area on the south bank of the River Thames, in the London Borough of Lambeth, central London, England. The South Bank is not formally defined, but is generally understood to be situated betwe ...

in the

Brisbane CBD Brisbane City is the central Suburbs and localities (Australia), suburb and central business district of Brisbane, the state capital of Queensland, Australia. It is also colloquially referred to as the "Brisbane CBD", "the city", or simply "to ...

near the TAFE Brisbane City campus. Following restructuring within CIMIC in 2014 and the merger of several international Leighton businesses into Thiess, the company claims to have become the largest contract mining services provider in the world.

History

Thiess was founded as Horn & Thiess in 1933 by Henry Horn and

Leslie Thiess Sir Leslie Charles Thiess Commander of the Order of the British Empire, CBE (8 April 1909 – 25 November 1992) was a construction and mining industry entrepreneur, based in Queensland, Australia. He was one of the founders of Thiess Bros, which ...

with headquarters in

Toowoomba Toowoomba ( ), nicknamed 'The Garden City' and 'T-Bar', is a city on the border of South East Queensland and Darling Downs regions of Queensland, Australia. It is located west of Queensland's capital, Brisbane. The urban population of Toowoom ...

. Initially the business focused on road-building and earth moving but subsequently expanded into dam construction, open cut mining and other forms of civil engineering. After other members of the Thiess family bought Horn out, it was renamed Thiess Bros. In 1951 Thiess was listed on the Sydney and Brisbane

stock exchanges A stock exchange, securities exchange, or bourse is an Exchange (organized market), exchange where stockbrokers and stock trader, traders can buy and sell security (finance), securities, such as share (finance), shares of stock, Bond (finance) ...

. After importing

Toyota Land Cruiser The , also sometimes spelt as LandCruiser, is a series of four-wheel drive vehicles produced by the Japanese automobile manufacturer Toyota. It is Toyota's longest running series of models. , the sales of the Land Cruiser totalled more than 1 ...

s into Australia for the

Snowy Mountains Scheme The Snowy Mountains Scheme, also known as the Snowy Hydro or the Snowy scheme, is a hydroelectricity and irrigation in Australia, irrigation complex in south-east Australia. Near the border of New South Wales and Victoria (Australia), Victoria, ...

in 1959, Thiess became the

Toyota is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturer headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. It was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda and incorporated on August 28, 1937. Toyota is the List of manuf ...

commercial vehicle franchisee in Australia. A 40% shareholding in Thiess Toyota was sold to

Toyota Australia Toyota Australia is an Australian subsidiary of the Japanese car manufacturer Toyota. It markets Toyota products and manages motorsport, advertising and business operations for Toyota in Australia. It is also responsible for Lexus vehicles in A ...

in 1968, with the remaining stake being sold in 1980. From 1967 until 1970, Thiess was also the distributor of

White Motor Company White Motor Company (later renamed White Motor Corporation and commonly known as White) was an American car, truck, bus and agricultural tractor manufacturer from 1900 until 1980. The company also produced bicycles, roller skates, automatic la ...

products in Australia. In February 1980, Thiess was taken over by CSR in a

hostile takeover In business, a takeover is the purchase of one company (law), company (the ''target'') by another (the ''acquirer'' or ''bidder''). In the UK, the term refers to the acquisition of a public company whose shares are publicly listed, in contrast t ...

. In April 1981, the construction division was sold to a consortium of

Hochtief Hochtief AG is a global provider of infrastructure technology and construction services, with locations in North America, Australia, and Europe. The Essen based company is primarily active in the fields of high tech, energy transition, and sustai ...

(50%),

Westfield Group Westfield Group was an Australian shopping centre company that existed from 1960 to 2014, when it split into two independent companies: Scentre Group, which owns and operates the Australian and New Zealand Westfield shopping centre portfolio; ...

(25%) and Leslie Thiess (25%). In July 1983 Thiess was acquired by Leighton Holdings, with Hochtief becoming the majority shareholder in Leighton Holdings. In 1987 Thiess diversified into

waste collection Waste collection is a part of the process of waste management. It is the transfer of solid waste from the point of use and disposal to the point of treatment or landfill. Waste collection also includes the curbside collection of recyclabl ...

establishing Thiess Waste Management Services. This was sold in July 2012 to Remondis. In 2011, the business was inducted into the Queensland Business Leaders Hall of Fame. In 2014, the mining operations of Leighton Africa, Leighton Asia and Leighton Contractors were merged into. In 2016 Thiess's civil engineering business was merged into Leighton Contractors which was renamed CPB Contractors. Since then Thiess has been entirely focused on mining projects. In 2021, CIMIC agreed to joint ownership (50/50) of Thiess with Elliott Advisors.

Major projects

Major projects undertaken by Thiess include:

References

External links

Thiess Pty Ltd digital story and oral histories

State Library of Queensland State Library of Queensland (State Library) is the state public reference and research library of Queensland, Australia, operated by the Government of Queensland, state government. The Library is governed by the Library Board of Queensland, whi ...

{{Mining companies of Australia, state=collapsed Auto dealerships of Australia Companies based in Brisbane Companies formerly listed on the Australian Securities Exchange Construction and civil engineering companies established in 1933 Construction and civil engineering companies of Australia Mining services companies of Australia Waste management companies of Australia Westfield Group 1950s initial public offerings Australian companies established in 1933 Waste companies established in 1933 1980 mergers and acquisitions