Hutchies tops IBISWorld’s list of Queensland’s largest companies

A 110-year-old five-generation construction business has regained its position as Queensland’s biggest private company. See who else makes the $35bn list.

A renowned 110-year-old family construction business has regained its place as Queensland’s top private company.

Hutchinson Builders, with a total revenue of $2.62bn topped the Queensland list replacing Australia’s second largest meat processor and exporter Teys Australia which won top place last year in the IBISWorld Top 500 Private Companies for 2022.

Hutchies was founded by Jack Hutchinson in 1912 and has now has five generations working at the family business and 1500 employees.

Over the years it has been behind some of Queensland’s and Australia’s largest building projects and last week was ranked the state’s busiest builder with 3829 dwelling starts across the country.

Chairman Scott Hutchinson said they were as busy as ever with the apartment sector improving, despite rising interest rates.

“We’re doing as much work as we’ve ever done. I'm trying to slow it down a bit. There's still too much work out there,” he said.

Scott Hutchinson, Chairman of Hutchinson Builders.

Overall, there were 73 Queensland private businesses in the IBISWorld Top 500 list an increase of two from 2020-21.

Hutchies came in 10th place on the national 500 list with a 1.9 per cent increase in revenue while Teys Australia – a joint venture between the Teys family and the Cargill Company – came in 16th with $2.4bn in revenue, a fall of 19.5 per cent..

The third Queensland business on the list was the RACQ with $2.009bn in revenue, a 8.3 per cent increase on last year, followed by UnitingCare Qld with $1.79bn a 1.4 per cent rise and civil construction company BMD Group which made $1.639bn, a 24.8 per cent increase.

Queensland private companies generated more than $35bn in revenue in 2021-22 while overall the 500 companies across Australia had $276.7bn in revenue, a 5.9 per cent increase on the previous 12 months.

Teys Australia chairman Brad Teys.

IBISWorld senior enterprise analyst Joel Barry said 51 Australian companies in the Top 500 operated in the building construction industry, up from 36 last year, of which eight of those were from Queensland.

“In last year’s list, construction saw negative growth of -1.62 per cent, rebounding to 8.92 per cent this year with average revenue of $500m,” Mr Berry said.

“This could indicate the larger operators being able to better withstand the effect of rising material costs compared with their smaller-scale counterparts. Builders made up 9 per cent of total revenue for this year’s list.”

Low unemployment rates have been reflected in this year’s list, with the 12 hospitals in the Top 500 seeing an 87 per cent increase in full time equivalent staff on average. Agricultural enterprises have also seen high headcounts over the last financial year, recording an average increase of 37 per cent.