Stories

How Freedom Foods went from ASX darling to a $590m write-down and a rebrand as Noumi, and what the regulators found along the way.

Inside the Plutus Payroll fraud: the second-tier company structure that siphoned PAYG withholding tax, the arrests, and what the courts found.

The High Court found Qantas broke the law by outsourcing 1,700 ground handling jobs. Here's what the courts found, and what it didn't decide.

The Bell review and state inquiries into Star Entertainment exposed years of money-laundering failures. Here's what was found, and what it cost the casino group.

How confidential government tax-policy consultations at PwC were allegedly used to help clients sidestep new anti-avoidance laws, and what the Senate inquiry and fallout revealed.

ARB Corporation turned bull bars, drawers and fridges into a global export business worth billions. Here's how the numbers actually stack up.

Breville went from a Sydney workshop and the Toastie to a premium global kitchen appliance brand. Priya Naidu checks the numbers behind the story.

Sonic Healthcare runs labs across three continents and processes hundreds of millions of tests a year, yet it barely registers in the public imagination. Here's how it got so big.

Paul Ramsay turned a single Sydney psychiatric clinic into one of the world's largest private hospital operators. The Ramsay Health Care numbers explain why.

Altium spent three decades turning circuit-board design software into a near-monopoly before Renesas paid up. Here's how, in numbers.

How a Melbourne car classifieds business became a multinational marketplace operator, and why the ASX still seems to underrate it.

REA Group turned a modest listings site into one of the world's most profitable property portals. Priya Naidu digs into the numbers behind the dominance.

How two Sydney entrepreneurs built buy-now-pay-later into a global habit, and sold it to Block in the biggest takeover in Australian corporate history.

The real story of the Hills Hoist rotary clothesline, the Adelaide firm that built an empire on it, and why the "who invented it" question is messier than the legend.

Bonds built its Australian identity on Chesty Bond and local mills. The Bonds ownership history tells a quieter story of offshoring and foreign takeover.

Weet-Bix is one of Australia's most trusted brands, yet the Sanitarium company behind it is owned by a church and pays no income tax. Here's the story.

Janine Allis opened her first Boost Juice store with borrowed money and no retail experience. Two decades on it's a global franchise. Here's how.

How a Melbourne haircare label built on brown bottles and quiet design became a multibillion-dollar sale to L'Oréal, one of the biggest deals in Australian brand history.

JB Hi-Fi went from a single Melbourne record store to Australia's biggest electronics retailer on a formula of low margins, high volume and no frills.

Graham Turner turned a share-house travel scheme into Flight Centre. Doug Kirby traces the culture, the collapse fears and the comeback.

How Foster's became a global punchline for "Australian for beer" while the real brewer, Carlton & United, ended up owned from London.

The Myer history runs from a Bendigo drapery stall to the Bourke Street flagship, the Coles Myer merger and today's tougher retail reckoning.

How George James Coles' 1914 Melbourne variety store became one of Australia's two supermarket titans, surviving Coles Myer, Wesfarmers and a 2018 demerger.

Before the retail chain that bears his name collapsed under other owners, Dick Smith built three separate ventures on cheek, timing and a genius for publicity.

How a family fled Europe with almost nothing, built a smallgoods-to-steel empire in Melbourne, and then did something rare: wound it up on their own terms.

Sidney Myer arrived from Russia with almost nothing. He built Australia's biggest department store empire — and a family whose giving still shapes Melbourne.

How Richard Pratt turned a small cardboard box plant into Visy, a global packaging empire, and why the cartel case still colours his legacy.

Solomon Lew built Premier Investments from Melbourne's garment trade and spent decades in the Coles Myer boardroom wars. Here's the record, plainly told.

Kerry Packer built World Series Cricket, gambled in millions and told a Senate committee why he wouldn't pay more tax than he had to.

Virgin Australia's voluntary administration was Australia's biggest airline failure since Ansett. Here's how Bain Capital ended up owning it.

How Slater & Gordon's 2015 UK acquisition of Quindell's professional services arm turned a listed law firm into a case study in corporate collapse.

How MFS Limited grew into a sprawling Gold Coast financial empire, then collapsed in 2008 into one of Australia's longest-running insolvency sagas.

How a Geelong building society's 1990 collapse left 200,000 depositors exposed, and why Victorian motorists paid it off at the bowser for a decade.

Adsteam's cross-shareholding empire made John Spalvins Australia's most admired executive. Then the early-1990s recession found the gearing underneath.

Centro Properties survived the GFC only just, undone by short-term debt and a balance-sheet reclassification error that produced one of Australia's landmark director-duty rulings.

Sons of Gwalia's 2004 collapse over gold hedging losses produced a High Court ruling that let aggrieved shareholders queue as creditors, alarming boards for a decade.

Rio Tinto destroyed a 46,000-year-old rock shelter to expand an iron ore mine. A parliamentary inquiry, and the fallout, followed.

Firepower promised a pill that would slash fuel bills and sponsored Australian sport. It collapsed owing hundreds of millions, and ASIC pursued its director for years.

SEEK started as a scrappy job-listings site in 1997. Two decades on, the Bassat brothers' company owns some of Asia's biggest employment platforms. Here's how.

Reece Group built a plumbing-supplies empire from a single Melbourne shopfront, then spent billions buying into the American market. Here's how the numbers stack up.

From a Dunlop rubber offshoot to a global leader in protective and medical gloves, Ansell is one of Australia's least-noticed multinational success stories.

From a modest Hobart factory to cult status on every continent, Blundstone's story involves family ambition, a manufacturing crisis, and a boot that refuses to go out of style.

From a Bondi beachside experiment in 1914 to a global licensing empire, Speedo's journey is one of Australian brand history's most revealing stories.

Deckers Outdoor Corporation holds a US trademark on 'Ugg'. Australian sheepskin bootmakers have spent decades fighting back. Here's how it happened.

Andrew Forrest built Fortescue Metals from a shell company into one of the world's largest iron ore exporters. The story is wilder than the hagiography suggests.

Alan Bond's Bell Group fell in 1991. What followed was a banks-versus-liquidators legal war that consumed three decades, two jurisdictions and hundreds of millions in costs.

From a modest Hill Samuel offshoot to a $70-billion ASX giant operating across 34 countries, Macquarie's rise is one of the stranger success stories in Australian business history.

Harris Scarfe traded through two world wars and the Depression before collapsing in 2001. The accounting fraud that accelerated its end took years of litigation to untangle.

From a small Melbourne back office, Computershare quietly became the dominant force in global share registry services — an invisible giant hiding in plain sight on the ASX.

From Queensland's cane fields to the iconic polar bear, Bundaberg Rum's story is one of industrial necessity, stubborn regionalism, and an unlikely mascot.

How a Townsville financial planning firm built a leveraged investment model that worked brilliantly in a bull market — and then destroyed thousands of ordinary Australian lives when the GFC arrived.

Melanie Perkins and Cliff Obrecht started with school yearbooks in Perth. What they built next reshaped how the world makes visual content.

Vegemite, Speedo, Aeroplane Jelly — the brands feel Australian to the bone. The ownership tells a different story. Here's who actually holds the papers.

How a Hunter Valley sparky turned a single leveraged coal deal into Australia's largest personal fortune — and then lost it all inside a decade.

In the early 1990s, Compass Airlines twice tried to break the Ansett–Australian Airlines duopoly and twice ended in administration. Here's how it happened.

The James Hardie asbestos compensation controversy produced one of Australia's most significant corporate governance inquiries. A report from the public record.

The 2016 receivership of Dick Smith Electronics left creditors short and raised hard questions about inventory accounting and the mechanics of its 2013 float.

From a Depression-era serum laboratory in Melbourne to a $130 billion global giant, CSL's transformation is one of the most remarkable privatisation stories in Australian history.

Three separate public inquiries found Crown Resorts unsuitable to hold casino licences. This is what the Bergin Inquiry and its successors established, and how the findings reshaped Australian gambling.

How a self-taught bushman's saddle-stitched boot became one of Australia's most enduring brands — and how it passed through some of the country's biggest hands.