History

Monadelphous…The meaning behind the name

Monadelphous is actually a botanical term meaning that part of some plants and typically some flowers where the stamens come together at a point. Meaning the coming together of many to one point or for one purpose or a united people. Monadelphous – a drawing together of many people for strength and unity of purpose.

The Early Days

Monadelphous has been around for over 30 years, however, not by that name. The business was originally founded in the early 70’s with the name Contract Engineering Associates, or CEA as it was known. CEA was established to provide general mechanical contracting services to the rapidly growing mining industry in Western Australia. The name Monadelphous came into existence in the late 70’s and began to be used as a trading name in the early 80’s.

In the late 70’s, the company operated from premises in Welshpool in Perth and around 1980 expanded into Kalgoorlie to service the burgeoning gold industry in the Eastern Goldfields. In the early to mid 1980’s the company expanded into Queensland, New South Wales and overseas into New Zealand. During this time the company continued to grow at a frenetic pace, expanding further and acquiring new businesses. The company was now operating in Papua New Guinea and Indonesia, had acquired a control engineering company, a mining products company, a catalogue and logistics company and a bridge building company. By 1987 sales had reached $35 million per annum and the Monadelphous Group was listed on the Perth Stock Exchange, initially on the second board.

By now Monadelphous had become known as an innovative solution provider to the resources sector, providing a broad range of engineering services. Then along came the early 1980’s with skyrocketing interest rates and, as with many other companies of the time, Monadelphous found itself in severe financial difficulties. In late 1988 Monadelphous fell into receivership. However, with the support of four fine fellows going by the names of John Rubino, Charlie Bontempo, John Tretel and Sam Castelli, and heavily backed by a major investor, Monadelphous was reborn in early 1990.

More Recent Times

With a major restructure of the board and management the company was pared back to its core regional engineering contracting business focussing on locally provided maintenance and construction services to the mining industry and, slowly but surely, returned to profitability.

The company has gone from strength to strength weathering the difficult early 1990’s firmly establishing its engineering construction credentials, tackling resource development projects of ever increasing size and continuously building upon its excellent track record in maintenance and industrial services.

Monadelphous aim to strengthen their reputation as a quality service provider within existing and new markets. Diversification strategies include further development into oil, gas, power and water markets, geographical expansion and the pursuit of acquisitions to strengthen capabilities.

Growth through these strategies has seen the acquisition of Murray Instrumentation and Electrical in May 2005 and Ellavale Engineering in March 2007. These acquisitions have enabled Monadelphous to expand the services offered to it’s core customer base.