Industrial investment examined through the housing trough
Australia's goal of 1.2 million new homes has encouraged building-products makers to add capacity for the volumes it implies. Every kiln, line and plant should instead be approved on what it earns in a downturn, and the cheapest capacity for a boom is capacity a company can restart.
Energy contracting and electrification · 2026-05-25
Group revenue, year to June 2026
A$1.86bn
Bricks, plasterboard, windows and frames across five states
Strategy, corporate development and energy colleagues
16
Four direct reports at the Melbourne head office
Less gas per square metre on Brisbane line 2
38%
Hybrid heat-pump dryer, commissioned March 2026
I judge every kiln, line and acquisition by what it earns in a housing trough, because the boom will flatter all of them.
I am the chief strategy officer of Marrangal Building Products Limited, a fictional ASX-listed manufacturer based in Melbourne. In the year to June 2026 we earned A$1.86 billion of revenue and A$148 million of underlying EBIT from clay bricks fired in five kilns, plasterboard made in a joint venture with a Japanese board maker, aluminium windows fabricated to order and, since 2024, prefabricated timber frames. Almost everything we make goes into a new detached house or townhouse, so our volumes rise and fall with housing approvals.
I trained as a chemical engineer and spent five years beside the furnaces of an Adelaide bottle plant, where I learnt that an energy-hungry asset is a fifteen-year wager on fuel and demand. Six years of consulting in Sydney taught me to forecast housing by state and product. I joined Marrangal in July 2008 and have worked in group strategy, corporate development and, for four and a half years, as general manager of windows, before leading group strategy from July 2021.
Most of the decisions I would defend made the company smaller before they made it better: closing an extrusion press, declining a roof-tile business at the 2021 peak, shutting our oldest kiln rather than relining it, and taking the smaller of two government co-investments for a plasterboard dryer. Each had capable opponents inside the company. I would rather show a board the trough before it commits to the boom.
A peak-cycle acquisition declined
In late 2021 I capped our bid for Pindarra Roofing at A$300 million; a rival paid A$395 million. In July 2024 we bought Kurrawong Frame & Truss for A$96 million, 5.8 times EBITDA, and it earned A$19 million of EBITDA in FY2026.
A kiln closed instead of relined
Closing Kiln 1 at Bendarra in September 2023 avoided a A$31 million reline and moved its volume to two newer Victorian kilns, lifting their utilisation from 64 to 86 per cent. Masonry's EBIT margin rose from 6.2 per cent in FY2023 to 9.1 per cent in FY2026 on lower volumes.
Windows rebuilt around what importers cannot do
Between FY2017 and FY2021 the windows division's EBIT margin rose from 2.1 to 8.4 per cent after we closed the extrusion press, left a loss-making A$61 million apartment segment and put A$19 million into double glazing made to order.
A dryer the grid could actually power
Line 2 at our Brisbane plasterboard plant was commissioned in March 2026 with A$28 million of federal co-investment for a heat-pump drying stage. It uses 38 per cent less gas per square metre than line 1 and needed no new grid connection.
Current focus
I am preparing the board's annual trough-case review, which tests every division against a 25 per cent fall in detached-house commencements held for two years. I am also writing the paper on whether our New South Wales kiln should be rebuilt for electric firing or run on gas until 2031. And I am lodging the grid-connection application I should have lodged in 2024.
Conversations I welcome
I am not seeking an executive move. With my board's consent I would accept one non-executive directorship outside building products and construction, at a listed or government-owned company where energy-intensive plant or a long-lived capital decision sits near the centre of the strategy. Twenty-five days a year is what I can genuinely offer. I also speak occasionally on housing cycles, energy contracting and onshore manufacturing.
Beyond the page
The record behind the perspective.
In the boardroom
Marrangal Hayatsu Plasterboard Pty LtdDirector, as Marrangal's nominee, in an executive capacity · 2021–present
Wattlebrook Community Housing LimitedNon-executive director · 2023–present
Formation
Bachelor of Engineering (Chemical), with honoursCarrisford University · 1996
Master of Business Administration, part-timeHalloran Graduate School of Management · 2005
Juliet brought the roof-tile paper to the board with her walk-away price on the first page, and she did not move it when the room did. Less than three years later we bought a better business at half the multiple. She shows directors what a recommendation gives up, which is rarer than it should be.
Annabel ThirkellFictional chair, Marrangal Building Products LimitedThe full record ↗
Contact
I am not seeking an executive move. With my board's consent I would accept one non-executive directorship outside building products and construction, at a listed or government-owned company where energy-intensive plant or a long-lived capital decision sits near the centre of the strategy. Twenty-five days a year is what I can genuinely offer. I also speak occasionally on housing cycles, energy contracting and onshore manufacturing.