About Us

Corporate Information

The Laminex Group is the leading marketer, distributor and manufacturer of premium decorative surfaces in Australia and New Zealand. We have a strong portfolio of brands including Formica and essastone, as well as Laminex, which is Australasia’s leading brand for decorative surfaces.

The company also produces raw wood panels, a vital product for decorative surfaces, and facilitates the distribution of both premium and trade products to customers. In addition, we supply a growing selection of components including doors, kits, and handle options, to complement our core range and provide further opportunities for development.

After successfully driving the integration of the decorative surfaces and wood panels industry, The Laminex Group is well positioned as the market leader, with extraordinary potential for innovation and growth.

Our Distribution Network

The Laminex Group has an extensive national distribution network in Australia with dedicated centres specialising in customer service and design selection. There are also over 8,000 independent marketing and information display centres across the country.

In addition, we have eight production facilities throughout Australia and New Zealand, designed to provide operational flexibility and efficiency. We also work with independent distributors in New Zealand to ensure access for customers in all regions.

The Laminex Group is a division of Fletcher Building Limited.

Company Philosophy

At The Laminex Group, our company culture reflects our vision, mission, intent, and values.

Vision

An innovative organisation delivering fashionable surface solutions.

Mission

  • To be the leading marketer, distributor, and manufacturer of fashionable surface solutions and related products in Australasia.
  • To achieve this by being cost-competitive and innovative.
  • To value customer relationships and provide the best solutions by understanding our capabilities and customers’ individual needs.
  • To nurture business partnerships and foster an environment where our employees are valued and empowered to achieve their goals.
  • To increase our value to our customers, owners, and ourselves.

Intent

Customer intimacy is intrinsic to the way we manage our business. Importantly, it is our intention to:

  • Build long-lasting relationships and bonds with our customers.
  • Have a detailed understanding of individual customers, their business and our ability to improve the value of the relationship.
  • Know the people we sell to and the products and services they need.
  • Deliver the best total solution for our customers by understanding our capabilities and their individual needs.
  • Understand that our greatest asset is customer loyalty.

Our Values

We value our people. They are the key to our success.

The Laminex Group strives to provide a safe, fair workplace with competitive rewards, advancement based on merit, and recognition for work well done. We also encourage a balance between work and home life. It is our belief that everyone is responsible for achieving these goals.

We value our communities and our environment.

Our business cares about the world in which it operates. We strive to maintain good relationships with our communities, and we act responsibly towards the environment.

We value our customers.

The Laminex Group exists to meet the needs of our customers. We strive to be our customers’ suppliers of choice by implementing fair business partnerships and product and service excellence.

We value innovation, excellence and results.

We encourage innovation and entrepreneurial flair. We constantly seek out better ways of working and take responsibility for our actions. We believe that results are the true measure of success and so strive to achieve excellence for shareholders, customers, communities, and each other.

We value high ethical standards of behaviour.

Importantly, we treat others in the way we would like to be treated. We respect each other and act with honesty, openness and integrity in all that we do.

We value teamwork and supportive leadership.

Our leaders encourage individual accountability, and support and empower our people. We work as a team, breaking down barriers to co-operation and doing our best to help one another succeed.

Management Committee

  • David Surveyor
    Executive General Manager

    David Surveyor is the Executive General Manager for The Laminex Group. He joined the company in January 2008 as General Manager of Marketing and Export, taking over the responsibility of Sales soon after. His responsibilities included the management of the national marketing function as well as the states profit and loss businesses and export function.

    He moved back to Australia to take up the position after a successful stint as President of Blue Scope Steel Lysaght in Malaysia.

  • David Noonan
    Chief Financial Officer

    David Noonan commenced his career In Adelaide with Price Waterhouse spending five years with them before moving to Philadelphia in the US for a further two years. Upon his return to Australia, he joined the Amcor Group and spent seven years in various financial and commercial roles. Prior to joining The Laminex Group, David was employed for six years in the steel industry with Smorgon Steel and OneSteel where he worked on a number of acquisitions in Asia and the US, culminating in the $3.5 billion break-up of the Smorgon Steel Group with OneSteel and Bluescope Steel.

  • Graham Andrew
    General Manager, Manufacturing

    Graham Andrew joined the Messer Group in South Africa where he held various Sales Management positions over a 10 year period. In 1997 Graham accepted a post in Malaysia to set up a new Messer Group Joint Venture company and later took the position of Managing Director for the Messer Group subsidiary in Indonesia. After 6 years in South East Asia, Graham spent 3 years in the UK as Managing Director for Air Liquide UK, before emigrating to Australia and joining The Laminex Group in 2007.

    Graham has a Chemical Engineering degree from University of Witwatersrand (Johannesburg) and a MBA from Heriot Watt University (Edinburgh).

  • Jo McCabe
    General Manager, Human Resources

    Jo commenced her career in Retail working for Myer in a variety of Human Resources roles. Having gained extensive experience in HR line positions, Executive Recruitment and Manpower Planning/Succession Planning, Jo moved to the Financial sector working for the National Australia Bank (NAB). During the next 5 years she worked in Executive Development, a variety of HR management project work and as a Global Performance Improvement Consultant working with the Global Wholesale Bank. Jo joined The Laminex Group in 1999.

  • Robert Gibbes
    General Manager New Zealand

    Hailing from the Waikato in New Zealand, Robert is an experienced General Manager, having successfully led the Humes Group and Stresscrete businesses during an 18 year career with Fletcher Building.

    An early career in the Dairy Industry formed sound technical and quality management principles which have been at the core of many of the operational improvements achieved throughout his various roles.

    Robert studied Dairy Technology at Massey University and then gained first class honours in a Bachelor of Management Studies degree at Waikato University.

    Robert has led the New Zealand Laminex business since 2008 with a keen focus on enlivening the Fletcher Building values in a comprehensive program of business improvement. The New Zealand team recently achieved the award for most improved engagement in the annual JRA Best Places to Work survey of 280 businesses in New Zealand.

    Robert is a passionate rugby follower with family connections in the Waikato Team.

  • Preevy Sackville
    General Manager, Legal

    Preevy Sackville joined The Laminex Group in her current role in September 2005 and was appointed to the Management Committee in October 2008. Preevy’s previous roles include legal counsel at Nylex and Visy Recycling and Senior Corporate Lawyer in private practice while in Australia and Israel. Preevy holds a BA, LLB and Dip Ed and has been admitted to the Bars of the Supreme Court of Victoria and the Supreme Court of Israel.

Safety

We value our employees and acknowledge that they are key to the success of the business. For this reason, we put safety first, in everything that we do.

We have invested significant resources into a broad range of safety, health, and wellbeing programs including our 'Zero Harm' initiative. This aims to ensure that the company fosters a positive culture - one that champions the safety of its people, visitors, and contractors.

History

2010
The Laminex Group acquired Geraldton Independent Building Supplies.
Refurbishment of the manufacturing plant in Gympie Queensland.
2009
Relocated Timber Veneers operations from Welshpool, Western Australia, to Cheltenham, Victoria.
Survived the Global Financial Crisis.
2005
The Laminex Group announces plans to upgrade its Dardanup and Kumeu particleboard facilities.
2004
The Laminex Group merged Formex and Formica brands under one powerful brand: Formica – World’s Favourite Laminate.
2003
The Laminex Group New Zealand launched combining Formica NZ, Fletcher Wood Panels, Scott Panels and Hardwood.
2002
The Laminex Group Australasia is acquired by Fletcher Building. The Laminex Group operates as a separate division within the Fletcher Building Products group of companies.
2001
Laminex Industries acquires WESFI Manufacturing to form the largest decorative surfaces business in Australia.
1999
Laminex Industries acquires the Formica operation in Australia and New Zealand.
1998
CVC purchases the BTR Nylex building products group and the Amatek Pty Ltd is formed.
1990
New corporate identity for Laminex Industries is introduced.
1988
ACI Ltd taken over by BTR Nylex.
Formica Plastics Pty Ltd (Australian subsidiary of the Formica Corporation USA) changes its name to Formica Australia Pty Ltd.
1982
Australia's first MDF mill established at Wagga Wagga.
Formica acquires the New Zealand assets of Laminex Industries, a division of Alex Harvey.
1980
Laminex Industries formed within ACI embracing both AV Wehl and Laminex.
1972
ACI increases shareholding in AV Wehl to 60 per cent.
1971
AV Wehl obtains both Laminex and Charles Hope & Co.
1965
ACI buys 28 per cent interest in AV Wehl.
1963
AV Wehl Industries Limited floats as a public company.
1959
Formica New Zealand plant at Papakura opens.
1958
Laminex becomes a wholly owned subsidiary of ACI, Sykes remains Managing Director.
1956
Brothers Ron and Gordon Trewin (builders) purchase shares in small cabinetmaking business of Alfred Wehl.
1952
First laminate press installed at Cheltenham.
1946
Sykes visits USA to study decorative laminates.
1934
Laminex Pty Ltd registers as company: RM Sykes and AE Beck shareholders.

Colour and Design

The Laminex Group is committed to innovation and design excellence, providing exciting and inspiring integrated product solutions for a myriad of residential and commercial projects and applications. With a colour palette of over 400 decors, including solid colours, woodgrains, stone looks and patterns across a variety of products and brands, The Laminex Group offers a comprehensive range of carefully considered colour options in line with current interior trends.

The Laminex Group analyses global trends and works closely with the Australian design industry to interpret these for the local market. As a result, it remains at the forefront of colour, design, and innovation, with an evolving product portfolio that spans well beyond laminated surfaces.

Export

The Laminex Group is a leading manufacturer and distributor of decorative surface solutions for the Australian and
New Zealand markets. To complement our domestic Sales and Marketing team The Laminex Group operates an Export Department to market our extensive range of products worldwide.

The Laminex Group sells the following products:

Medium Density Fiberboard (MDF)
  • The Laminex Group manufactures Medium Density Fiberboard (MDF) from its state-of-the-art facilities using Pine from renewable forestry plantations. The combination of these two factors makes Australian MDF higher quality than products sourced from many other countries.
  • MDF is suitable for all high quality applications where a fine surface, light colour, low formaldehyde, and consistent quality is required while also meeting the various world quality standards for MDF.
  • Standard MDF for export is CARB Phase 2 accredited, F3S (E0) and Japanese Industrial Standard (JIS) approved.
  • Other MDF products such as F4S (Super E0) can be exported upon request.
  • MDF is accredited to the environmental standards of ECO-Specifier and PEFC systems.
High Pressure Laminate (HPL) and Low Pressure Laminate (LPL)
  • The Laminex Group supplies an extensive colour range of High Pressure Laminate (HPL) inspired by the latest global colour and design trends.
  • The Laminex Group HPL has been specified and used in major projects all over the world.
  • A range of decorated panel products (LPL) can be supplied to complement our range of HPL colours and designs.
  • Particle board and MDF decorating facilities in Australia can match LPL with HPL colour and edging products to give you a total solution for your project.
Other products
  • Products such as HPL wet area paneling and solid surfaces along with other products in The Laminex Group's range can also be supplied to international customers.

The Laminex Group’s extensive range of products enables us to find the right design and colour solution for you.