James Hardie Industries plc is an American-Irish global building materials company and the largest global manufacturer of fibre cement products. Headquartered in Ireland, it is cross-listed on the Australian and New York Stock Exchanges. Its management team currently sits in Chicago, Illinois, United States. James Hardie was plagued by several asbestos-related scandals in the 20th century.
Contents
History
James Hardie (27 July 1851 – 20 November 1920) emigrated to Australia in 1888 from Linlithgow, Scotland, and established a business importing oils and animal hides. Andrew Reid, also from Linlithgow, came to join Hardie in Melbourne, and became a full partner in 1895. When Hardie retired in 1911, he sold his half of the business to Reid.
Listing on Sydney Stock Exchange and asbestos-containing products
The company was listed on the Sydney Stock Exchange in 1951. At the time, the company manufactured products out of asbestos cement sheet and other related building material. By the middle of the twentieth century, James Hardie had become the largest manufacturer and distributor of building products, insulation, pipes and brake linings containing asbestos. In Australia, it operated asbestos plants in New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Victoria and Western Australia. Working with the products containing asbestos – including asbestos cement – caused people to develop various pleural abnormalities such as asbestosis and malignant mesothelioma. In 1961, it merged its brake lining division with Turner & Newall's Ferodo, taking a 60% shareholding in Hardie-Ferodo. It purchased the remaining 40% in August 1980.
Asbestos
In 1978 the effects of pleural abnormalities and other asbestos-related diseases were beginning to show up in the former mine workers. While other companies were involved in similar asbestos-related activities, most notably CSR, more than 50% of claims made to the Dust Diseases Tribunal of New South Wales in 2002 were brought against companies in the James Hardie group.
There were protests against the companies' operations near the small Aboriginal Australian community of Baryulgil on the NSW North Coast, with Lyall Munro Snr and the NSW Aboriginal Legal Service taking an active part in actions against the company.
James Hardie and its subsidiaries had been providing compensation for victims of its operations since the 1980s. Though some earlier claims had arisen, the proliferation of cases from the 1980s onwards forced James Hardie to acknowledge that it had known asbestos to be dangerous. James Hardie nonetheless maintained that it had done everything possible to protect workers. In 1978 the company began putting warning labels on its products explaining that inhalation of the dust could result in cancer. In March 1987 James Hardie ceased all asbestos manufacturing activities.
As concern grew about the serious adverse health effects of asbestos, in the mid-1980s James Hardie developed an asbestos-free fibre cement technology, without the dangers associated with asbestos.
James Hardie had been structured as a parent company operating through subsidiaries since the 1930s. All asbestos operations, including the provision of compensation, were undertaken by James Hardie's subsidiaries, principally James Hardie and Coy and Hardie-Ferodo (later known as Jsekarb). Between 1995 and 2000, James Hardie (the parent company) began to remove the assets of these subsidiaries (since renamed Amaca and Amaba respectively), while leaving them with most of the asbestos liabilities of the James Hardie group.
In 2001 these two companies were separated from James Hardie and acquired by the Medical Research and Compensation Foundation (MRCF) which was essentially created in order to act as an administrator for Hardie's asbestos liabilities. Then CEO of James Hardie, Peter McDonald, made public announcements emphasising that the MRCF had sufficient funds to meet all future claims and that James Hardie would not give it any further substantial funds. Indeed, the net assets of the MRCF were $293 million, mostly in real estate and loans, and exceeded the 'best estimate' of $286 million in liabilities which had been estimated in an actuarial report commissioned by James Hardie. The Jackson Report found that this 'best estimate' was 'wildly optimistic' and the estimates of future liabilities was 'far too low'.
Asbestos-free products
By the mid 1980s, James Hardie invented the modern day asbestos-free fibre cement material and had transitioned production entirely to fibre cement, a product consisting largely of Portland cement, sand, and wood fibres.
Subsequent relocations
In 2010 James Hardie moved its corporate domicile to Ireland.
James Hardie currently operates a corporate office in Chicago, Illinois, United States, and operates more than a dozen manufacturing plants around the world.
Sponsorship and philanthropy
James Hardie was the naming rights sponsor of the Bathurst 500/1000 run in Australia from 1968 until 1987. It was shirt sponsor for the Parramatta Eels Australian rugby club from 1981 until 1995, and commenced sponsoring them again in 2025.
In 1988 James Hardie Industries made the largest donation ever made to an Australian public library when it gifted to the State Library of Queensland the meticulously developed and hugely significant Australian Library of Fine Art which was given as a bicentennial gift to the nation. This collection became the James Hardie Library of Australian Fine Arts, and was part of the Arts and Rare Books Unit at the State Library.
Timeline
Timeline of key events from the Devil's Dust TV program:
2004: James Hardie CEO Peter MacDonald resigns, with a resignation payment of $9 million.
February 2007: ASIC files court proceedings against the James Hardie board as it "failed to act with requisite care and diligence" when they assured investors that the Medical Research and Compensation Foundation (MRCF) was fully funded.
February 2007: James Hardie shareholders overwhelmingly approve a "compensation deal for asbestos victims worth $4 billion over the next 40 years". Meredith Hellicar, Chairwoman, resigns.
August 2007: Oncologist Professor Stephen Clarke diagnoses Banton with peritoneal mesothelioma, which is usually fatal within six months. Bernie files a new suit of exemplary damages against a former James Hardie subsidiary now part of the new Asbestos Injuries Compensation Fund. Judge John O'Meally (President of the Dust Diseases Tribunal) rules in favour of Banton, but the fund contests the judgement.
November 2007: Gravely ill, Banton gives court evidence from his bed at Concord Repatriation General Hospital. James Hardie make an offer of settlement. Compensation for Banton's "terminal mesothelioma is from the Asbestos Injuries Compensation Fund, the trust he fought to set up in 2004". Banton dies at home (on 27 November) aged 61 surrounded by his family and close friends.
September 2009: Journalist Matt Peacock releases his book Killer Company.
May 2012: The High Court of Australia finds that seven directors of the James Hardie breached their duties by approving the company's release of a misleading statement to the stock exchange that the MRCF was fully funded.