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Elizabeth Knight Business columnist October 30, 2025 — 2.56pm

It took building materials giant James Hardie decades to restore its reputation. Odiously infamous in the 1990s and early 2000s as the nefarious manufacturer of asbestos-laden products that ultimately led to the deaths of thousands of workers, it was subsequently reborn as one of Australia’s most successful companies.

It took only 24 hours to lose its standing again – this time for a different reason.

The crime this time around was that its board treated shareholders with disdain – and it paid the price for it.

On Thursday morning (AEDT), unhappy shareholders who had been seething since they had been manoeuvred out of getting a vote on the company’s $14 billion acquisition of

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