Oz Business

Commerce Oz style. A bit about business in Australia, and about some of our larger companies.

Australia has some pretty large companies floating around the place, as well as some spectacular failures.

Australia's own vehicle manufacturer (now owned by General Motors) is Holden, who make the Holden Commodore, which is the equal most popular car in Australia along with the Ford Falcon. Some smaller but still Oz owned vehicle companies are Oka (custom 4 wheel drives, mainly for mining companies and tour operators) and Orbital (makers of the orbital engine, which is fitted into standard cars).

Some other large Aussie companies are:

Company What They Are and Do

B.H.P. Broken Hill Proprietry. A now global mining company, merged with a Pommy mining company and called BHP Billetin.

Arnotts Now Yank owned, Arnotts make biscuits and the likes.

Uncle Tobys Various foods.

Coles Myer A large retail conglomerate.

Woolworths A supermarket chain.

Telstra The Government owned telecommunications carrier.

Commonwealth Bank Ex Government, now public share owned bank.

N.A.B. National Australia Bank.

Westfield A shopping mall chain.

Colgate Palmolive Cosmetics and personal hygene stuff.

Carlton United Grog.

Qantas The national international airline.

On your average day out, you might encounter the following:

Supermarkets such as Coles, Woolworths and Franklins.
Department stores such as Grace Bros, Myer, David Jones and K Mart.
Fast food such as Pizza Hut, McDonalds, Red Rooster, Hungry Jacks, Kingsleys, KFC.
Clothes shops such as Just Jeans, Jeans West, Overboard, Katies, Portmans, Suzanne and Roger David.
Music Shops such as The Music Shop and Sanity.
Shoe shops like Williams, Fosseys and The Athlete's Foot.
Banks like Commonwealth, N.A.B., A.N.Z. (Australia New Zealand), Westpac and St George.
Camping shops like Camping World, Kathmandu, Snowgum and Mountain Designs.
Car dealerships like Ford, Holden, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Hyundai, Daewoo and Toyota.
Electronics companies such as A.W.A. (Australian Wireless Association), Teac, National, Panasonic, Sony, Sanyo, Mitsubishi and Sharp.
Hotel chains like Best Western, Country Comfort and Hilton.

Some of the more spectacular failures are Alan Bond (now in jail for fraud or something like that) and Christopher Skase, who was on the run in Majorca, Spain and owed hundreds of millions to Aussie creditors. The government was actively trying to extradite him to Australia, he claimed he was too sick to travel and got around in a wheelchair and air mask. This was known as the Skase Chase, until Skasie died from his illnesses. Seems he was telling the truth after all.