Australia is the ‘Lucky Country’ for Japan’s Timber Giants
Sumitomo Forestry's Australian profit rose 72 per cent, the only housing market in the group where it did, with Obayashi due to take over Multiplex on 30 September.
A gum tree rides the crane to the crown of Atlassian Central at topping out in July, the 39-storey hybrid timber tower the Built Obayashi Joint Venture is finishing beside Sydney's Central Station. Obayashi is due to take Multiplex, a rival Tier 1 contractor, outright on 30 September. (Photo Credit: Supplied to Wood Central / Central PR Group by Dexus)
Australia has emerged as “one of the most important markets” due to population growth, demand for urban development, and stable economic conditions. That is according to Obayashi, one of Japan’s five largest construction groups, which is acquiring Multiplex and will join Sumitomo Forestry, Asahi Kasei, and Kajima as Japanese owners of Australian builders.
“Establishing Sumitomo Forestry as the number one builder in Australia,” Yasuhiro Odagane said of the Metricon deal when it was announced, with the managing director of Sumitomo Forestry Australia chasing 10,000 local starts a year under the group’s Mission TREEING 2030 strategy. Metricon held its crown as the country’s largest builder with 4,015 starts, with stablemate Henley Properties eighth on 1,984 starts, and Redink Homes, also Sumitomo-controlled, fifteenth on 1,312 starts.
Metricon chief executive Brad Duggan and chief financial officer Jon Robson outside a timber-framed home under construction. Metricon started 4,015 homes in 2024-25, first on the Housing 100 for a tenth year, and its owner, Sumitomo Forestry, grew Australian housing profit by 72 per cent in the six months to June. (Photo Credit: Metricon)
Between them, those three started 7,311 homes, 18 per cent of what Australia’s 20 largest builders delivered, for a company that sent a wooden satellite into orbit in 2024. Asahi Kasei Homes added 4,424 through fourth-placed NEX Building Group and a stake in Simonds Group; together, the five started 11,735 of the 64,407 homes on the Housing Industry Association’s list.
The expansion comes as the home market shrinks, with Japanese housing starts at 711,171 in the year to March, the lowest in the Land Ministry’s series back to 2000 and less than half the 1.54 million built in 1994. Two-by-four starts fell 10.8 per cent to 88,284, and timber still took 59.5 per cent of what was built.
Japan’s new housing starts versus timber’s share, by fiscal year to March. Starts have fallen 45 per cent from their 2006 peak of 1.29 million to 711,171 in the year to March 2026, the lowest in the Ministry’s series back to 2000, while the timber share has risen from 44 to 59.5 per cent. (Graphic: Wood Central)
“On-site installers click 100 square metre houses into place like Ikea furniture,” Yuichi Shinohara told Timber Construct in Melbourne last year, with the Shinohara Group managing director cutting frame manufacture from 40 days to 1.5. Structural coordinator Shingi Tarirah said the pre-cut model was highly efficient and much safer, and that the group was open to working with the Australian supply chain.
Sekisui House and Sumitomo Forestry have both named Australia and North America as the markets that make up the difference. Sumitomo’s accounts already show it: Australian housing profit rose 72 per cent to 19.7 billion yen in the six months to June, the only housing market in the group to see a rise.
Even so, Odagane has warned that foreign investment rules, stamp duty, and slow approvals are deterring Japanese capital, telling a Perth conference last year that the settings make Australia less attractive than North America. Sumitomo Forestry is spending anyway, with a $1.2 billion build-to-rent partnership with Cedar Pacific that starts at Wolli Creek.
Kajima has owned Melbourne builder Icon since 2005, three years before Sumitomo Forestry entered the Australian housing market, and it is now building the mass-timber pit complex at Albert Park that keeps the Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix in the country until 2037. The Woods Bagot design carries 14 garages and a Paddock Club for 5,000, with the new garages due for the 2027 race and the full complex for 2028.
Obayashi is already on the ground in Sydney, where the Built Obayashi Joint Venture is head contractor on Atlassian Central, the 39-storey hybrid timber tower that topped out beside Central Station in July. Obayashi built Port Plus, Japan’s largest mass timber building, at Yokohama, and set out a company-wide timber strategy three years before it moved on to Multiplex.
The two-kilometre Grand Ring at Expo 2025 in Osaka, assembled by three Japanese contractors including Obayashi, which set out a company-wide Wood Vision strategy in March 2023 and built Port Plus, Japan’s largest mass timber building, at Yokohama. (Photo Credit: Finbarr Fallon / Alamy Stock Photo)
Multiplex brings Obayashi 2,500 employees and the crews that assembled Boola Katitjin at Murdoch University from nearly 1,800 pieces of glue-laminated timber. Brookfield receives $924 million for the contractor, $753 million of it in cash when the shares transfer on 30 September, three weeks after the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission found “limited horizontal overlap” between the two.
Metricon prides itself on building all its homes with concrete slabs and timber frames, and Scott Park’s Perth business is making its move on timber framing. Now the timber is following the capital, with the Japan Wood-Products Export Association putting four sugi and hinoki suppliers in front of Australian builders on 5 October, in a market that bought 96 million yen of the 59.6 billion yen Japan earned from wood exports last year.
“This is a milestone moment for Multiplex, marking the next chapter in our evolution,” John Flecker said, with the Multiplex Global chief executive insisting the sale leaves operations, projects, brand, and leadership unchanged. Neither Obayashi nor Built has said what Japanese ownership of a rival Tier 1 contractor means for the joint venture still finishing Atlassian Central.
To read how Japan’s two-by-four pre-cut model could work here, click for Wood Central’s coverage from inside a Japanese factory.
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