Thiess Pty Ltd is an international mining services company based in Brisbane, 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. Thiess' headquarters are located in the Thiess Centre in South Bank.
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 with headquarters in Toowoomba. 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.Thiess Bros' contracts Queensland Country Life 9 June 1949 page 16The Story of Thiess Brothers The Courier-Mail 30 March 1953 page 7
In 1951 Thiess was listed on the Sydney and Brisbane stock exchanges.Shaping a bigger future Thiess
After importing Toyota Land Cruisers into Australia for the Snowy Mountains Scheme in 1959, Thiess became the Toyota commercial vehicle franchisee in Australia.Shaping a bigger future ThiessNew Thiess Toyota link Canberra Times 6 May 1971 page 33 A 40% shareholding in Thiess Toyota was sold to Toyota Australia in 1968, with the remaining stake being sold in 1980.Toyota History Phil Gilbert ToyotaThiess to sells its interest in Thiess Toyota Canberra Times 30 January 1980 page 27Toyota acquires distributor company Truck & Bus Transportation June 1980 page 130 From 1967 until 1970, Thiess was also the distributor of White Motor Company products in Australia.White Trucks distributorship Freight & Container Transportation December 1967 page 17Thiess drops out of White operations; changes planned Truck & Bus Transportation September 1970 page 144
In February 1980, Thiess was taken over by CSR in a hostile takeover.Plans for Thiess Canberra Times 1 December 1979 page 20CSR Offer Accepted - Thiess directors give up fight Canberra Times 12 January 1980 page 16Thiess Holdings Limited Delisted Australia In April 1981, the construction division was sold to a consortium of Hochtief (50%), Westfield Group (25%) and Leslie Thiess (25%).Sale to Thiess Canberra Times 3 April 1981 page 16 In July 1983 Thiess was acquired by Leighton Holdings, with Hochtief becoming the majority shareholder in Leighton Holdings.Leighton plans to merge with construction giant Canberra Times 9 June 1983 page 23Chances for profit curbed, Leighton chairman says Canberra Times 25 October 1984 page 21Merger of big construction groups Engineers Australia 24 June 1983 page 7
In 1987 Thiess diversified into waste collection establishing Thiess Waste Management Services. This was sold in July 2012 to Remondis.Remondis Expands in Australia with $230m Acquisition Waste Management World 10 July 2012
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 the company. 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 sold a 50% share in Thiess to Elliott Advisors. In April 2024, CIMIC exercised a put option to increase its shareholding to 60%.CIMIC acquires additional equity interest in Thiess MinterEllison 8 May 2024 CIMIC has an option that expires in December 2026 to increase its shareholding back to 100%.CIMIC increases ownership of Thiess to 60% CIMIC Group 24 April 2024
Major projects Major projects undertaken by Thiess include:
References
External links Thiess Pty Ltd digital story and oral histories, State Library of Queensland