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.
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-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.
Relocations to the Netherlands, Ireland and the U.S. In December 2001, the company relocated its headquarters to the Netherlands. While the move to the Netherlands resulted in tax savings of $86 million over seven years, in 2009 the Australian Taxation Office issued an amended assessment for $172 million plus interest and penalties. James Hardie successfully appealed the assessment. Also in 2009, the US Internal Revenue Service alleged that James Hardie had not been in compliance with the US-Dutch treaty since it had been implemented in 2006 and claimed $US37 million in unpaid taxes plus $US10 million in interest and penalties. 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 from 1968 until 1987. It was shirt sponsor for the Parramatta Eels 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.
Asbestos
History 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.
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