Company type | Public |
---|---|
ASX: BXB formerly ASX: BIL | |
Industry | Commercial & Professional Services |
Founded | 1875 |
Headquarters | , Australia |
Products | Pallets, reusable produce crates, containers |
Revenue | US$4.6 billion (2019) |
US$804 million (2019) | |
Number of employees | 11,000 (2019) |
Website | www.brambles.com |
Brambles Limited is an Australian company that specialises in the pooling of unit-load equipment, pallets, crates and containers. It is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange.
Brambles traces its history to 1875, when Walter Bramble established a butchery business in Newcastle, the operations of which he gradually expanded into transport and logistics. Brambles was listed on the Australian Securities Exchange in 1954, as W E Bramble & Sons Limited and entered the pallet pooling business in 1958 through the purchase of the Commonwealth Handling Equipment Pool (CHEP), from the Australian Government. This same year the company changed its name to Brambles Industries Limited and moved its head office from Newcastle to Sydney. [1] [2]
In 1970, Brambles entered the waste disposal market with the purchase of the Australian subsidiary of Purle Brothers Holdings. [3] [4] In 1972, Brambles entered the armoured car market in partnership with Brink's. [5] In 1972, Brambles purchased the Port Jackson & Manly Steamship Company. Brambles main interest in the business, was a 50% shareholding in Tidewater Port Jackson Marine, which operated six platform supply vessels. [6] Following a threat by Brambles to withdraw the loss-making Manly ferry service, the Public Transport Commission took over the service in December 1974. [7] In 1975, Brambles formed an 80:20 joint venture with UK company Guest Keen & Nettlefold (GKN) to bring CHEP to the United Kingdom. [2] [8]
In July 1984, Grace Removals was purchased. [9] In 1988, Brambles became the largest private rail wagon operator in Europe acquiring Groupe CAIB of Brussels and Procor's United Kingdom business. [10] [11] [12] In 1996, Brambles Transport Services was sold to Toll Holdings. [13]
In June 2000, Brambles sold its Eurotainer container business to Ermewa [14] [15] and Brinks Brambles armoured car unit to Chubb Security. [16] [17]
In August 2001, the support services activities of GKN (which included interest in CHEP and Cleanaway) were merged into a separate company, Brambles Industries plc (listed on the London Stock Exchange) which then entered became a dual-listed company with Brambles Industries Limited. [2] [18] [19] In December 2001, the Wreckair equipment hire business was sold to Coates Hire. [20]
In March 2002, the United Transport and Brambles Project Services businesses were sold to Patrick Corporation. [21] In October 2002, the railway leasing business was sold to VTG-Lehnkering. [22] [23] In November 2002 the Brambles Shipping business, including the ships Tasmanian Achiever and Victorian Reliance , was sold to Toll Holdings. [24] [25]
In 2006, the company's Australian waste management business, Cleanaway Australia and its Brambles Industrial Services business were sold to Kohlberg Kravis Roberts. [26] [27] Cleanaway UK was sold to Veolia. [27] [28] Following these divestments, Brambles unified its Australian and British-listed entities into a single entity, Brambles Limited, that was listed on the Australian Securities Exchange in November 2006. [29] [30] [31] Brambles maintained a secondary listing on the London Stock Exchange until March 2010. [32] [33]
In December 2013, the Recall storage business was spun-off. [34]
GKN Ltd is a British multinational automotive and aerospace components business headquartered in Redditch, England. It is a long-running business known for many decades as Guest, Keen and Nettlefolds. It can trace its origins back to 1759 and the birth of the Industrial Revolution.
Freightliner Group is a rail freight and logistics company headquartered in the United Kingdom. It is presently a majority owned subsidiary of the American holding company Genesee & Wyoming.
Thales Australia is a defence contractor based in Australia. It is a subsidiary of the French defence technology conglomerate Thales Group.
Australian standard pallets are square softwood or hardwood pallets that are standard in Australia and non-standard anywhere else in the world.
Toll Group operates a logistics and global freight forwarding network spanning 150 countries, with over 20,000 customers. Toll has more than 16,000 team members across 500 sites.
Patrick Corporation is an Australian seaport operator with operations in Brisbane, Fremantle, Melbourne and Sydney. Formerly listed on the Australian Securities Exchange, it is owned by Brookfield Asset Management and Qube Holdings.
Pacific National is one of Australia's largest rail freight businesses.
Wesfarmers Limited is an Australian conglomerate, headquartered in Perth, Western Australia. It has interests predominantly in Australia and New Zealand, operating in retail, chemical, fertiliser, industrial and safety products. With revenue of A$30.8 billion in the 2020 financial year, it is one of Australia's largest companies by revenue. Wesfarmers is also one of the largest private employers in Australia, with approximately 107,000 employees.
Sea Containers was a Bermudan registered company which operated two primary business areas: transport and container leasing.
CHEP is a company dealing in pallet and container pooling services, serving customers in a range of industrial and retail supply chains. It is a subsidiary of Brambles.
Genesee & Wyoming Inc. (G&W) is an American short line railroad holding company, that owns or maintains an interest in 122 railroads in the United States, Canada, Belgium, Netherlands, Poland, and the United Kingdom; and formerly in Australia.
Alvis PLC was created when United Scientific Holdings plc acquired the Alvis division of the nationalised vehicle manufacturer British Leyland in 1981. United Scientific maintained its own name until 1992 when the group was renamed Alvis plc. Alvis acquired the armoured vehicle business of the Swedish engineering company Hägglund & Söner in 1997 and the armoured vehicle business of GKN in 1998.
Rail transport in Tasmania consists of a network of narrow gauge track of 1,067 mm reaching virtually all cities and major towns in the island state of Tasmania, Australia. Today, rail services are focused primarily on bulk freight, with no commercial passenger services being operated. The mainline railways of Tasmania are currently operated by TasRail, a Government of Tasmania-owned Corporation, who owns and maintains both rolling stock, locomotives, and track infrastructure.
UGL, formerly known as United Group, is an engineering company. The company provides construction, maintenance, and asset management services to the rail, resources, and infrastructure sectors, and corporate real estate, facilities management, and business process outsourcing services to property users. Its clients are large companies, governments and institutions in Australia, New Zealand, Asia. It was purchased by the CIMIC Group in December 2016.
Advenza Freight was an English rail freight company based in Gloucester. It was part of the Cotswold Rail group. The company was wound up in October 2009.
Thomas Nationwide Transport, commonly known by its TNT acronym, and in its later years as TNT Limited, was an Australian logistics and transport company. Founded in 1946, it was taken over by KPN in 1996 and in 1998 became part of the TNT Post Group.
IFCO trays are a type of reusable packaging for transporting fresh food produce. IFCO SYSTEMS is the name of the company that first developed a pooling service for reusable plastic trays for fresh produce in 1992, when the company was founded in Pullach, Germany. IFCO is the acronym for International Food Container Organization.
Cleanaway Waste Management Limited is an Australian waste management company. Founded in 1979 by Brambles, it has extensive operations in Australia and the United Kingdom.
Toll Domestic Forwarding (TDF) is a division of the Toll Group specialising in freight forwarding by road, rail and sea within and between Australia and New Zealand.
Mayne Group was an Australian healthcare and logistics company.