Editorial standards

How we research and write company history

Last reviewed: October 15, 2026. This page describes how every article in the archive is produced.

The purpose of publishing this is simple: a reader should be able to judge our work rather than take it on trust. Everything below is a commitment you can check us against — and complain about if we fall short.

What this archive is for

GreenValley documents the history of Australian companies and explains how the institutions around them work: the exchange, the disclosure regime, the accounting standards, the courts. Our subject is the past and the machinery. We do not recommend securities, publish price targets or forecasts, review portfolios, or offer any view on what a reader should own.

That boundary is not a restriction we work around. It is the definition of what this archive is. It is also why the material here can be useful to any reader regardless of their circumstances — because history does not depend on who is reading it.

Who writes and reviews

All content is written and reviewed by our editor, Ava Thomas. Every published page carries a byline, a publication date and a review date. Where a page has been substantially revised, the review date changes and a note records what changed.

We do not publish under invented names, and we do not present third-party material as our own.

Source hierarchy

Sources are ranked, and where two sources conflict the higher-ranked one prevails. We state the conflict on the page rather than quietly choosing the version that reads better.

We do not cite unattributed rumour, social media commentary, or promotional material as the basis for a factual claim. Where a widely repeated story has no document behind it, we either omit it or explain why it cannot be verified — as we have done in the BHP history and the Woolworths and Coles history.

The distinction that governs everything: record and interpretation

This is the most important rule in the archive, and it is the one readers should hold us to most firmly.

A record is something a document states. That a company was registered in 1885, that an acquisition completed in 1998, that a Royal Commission reported in 2003 — these are records, each traceable to a specific public document.

An interpretation is our assessment. That a particular acquisition was the turning point, that a reserve figure was optimistic, that a market structure resists new entrants — these are judgements. They may be well-founded. They are not facts, and we do not present them as though they were.

Every sentence in every article is one or the other, and interpretations are written as interpretations. This matters because a reader should be able to accept our records while rejecting our reasoning, and to see clearly where the line falls.

How an article is checked before publication

1. Step 1 — Trace every fact Each date, name, figure and event is matched to the document it came from, and the reference is kept on file. A detail that cannot be traced to a primary document is either omitted or explicitly flagged as unverified — never softened into something that sounds plausible.
2. Step 2 — Check the qualifiers Passages drawn from company documents, judgments and inquiry reports are compared against the original wording. Legal and regulatory language is carefully conditioned, and stripping that conditioning changes the meaning. Where a court found something narrower than the popular account of it, we report the narrower finding.
3. Step 3 — Separate record from interpretation Every sentence is classified. Interpretations are labelled and, where practical, the reader is told how to test them against the same documents we used.
4. Step 4 — Check the arithmetic Any figure we calculate from published data is recalculated from the source figures. A worked example with an arithmetic error teaches the wrong method confidently.
5. Step 5 — Re-read as a non-specialist The draft is read by someone who did not write it, to find the places where the explanation assumes knowledge the reader may not have.
6. Step 6 — Date and publish The article is published with a publication date and a review date, so a reader can judge how current any description of a rule or an institution is.

Naming individuals

Historical accounts of corporate failure necessarily name people. Our approach is narrow and consistent.

• We name individuals where their role is a matter of public record and material to understanding what happened.
• We report findings as the relevant court or inquiry made them, in the terms it used — not in stronger terms, and not in weaker ones.
• We do not allege misconduct that no court or inquiry has found.
• Where proceedings produced different outcomes for different individuals, we say so rather than generalising.
• The purpose of naming anyone is to make the record intelligible, never to attribute blame beyond what has already been established in public.

Corrections

We will make mistakes, particularly where an early historical detail rests on a single surviving source. Our approach is to correct openly rather than quietly.

• Confirmed factual errors are corrected on the page, with a dated note describing what was wrong.
• Where a correction changes the substance of an article, the note appears at the top of the affected section, not at the foot of the page.
• We do not silently delete published claims. A reader who relied on something we published is entitled to know that it changed.
• Where an article can no longer be made accurate, we withdraw it rather than leave it online.

To report an error, write to info@ceramicstory.com with the page address and what you observed. You will receive a reply, including a straight answer if we disagree and why.

Independence and funding

Everything in this archive is free to read. There is no paywall, no subscription, no advertising, no sponsored content and no affiliate links. Editorial decisions are made solely by our editor and are not subject to approval by any commercial party.

We do not accept payment or any other consideration from a company to be written about, to be left out, or to have critical material softened. No company is given the opportunity to review or approve an article before publication. If a commercial arrangement is ever introduced, it will be disclosed on our disclosure page and labelled on the affected content before publication.

Use of software tools

We may use software, including language-model tools, to help locate passages in long documents, reformat material we have already extracted, or check our own drafts for clarity. These are aids, never sources. No date, figure, quotation or claim is published on the basis of a tool's output alone: every one is verified against the original document before publication, and responsibility for accuracy rests with our editor.

What we will not publish

Photography and image credits

Photographs are used to illustrate subject matter and historical period. They are sourced from Wikimedia Commons under the licence stated against each one, and credited where the licence requires it. Images are not used to imply that any person or organisation shown endorses or is connected to GreenValley, and no photograph should be read as a statement about any company or security.

All photographs are sourced from Wikimedia Commons. Copyright in each remains with the photographer or institution credited, and the licence shown applies to that photograph alone. Photographs are used to illustrate historical period and subject matter; they are not archival material belonging to GreenValley, and their use implies no connection between the people or places shown and this website.

Contact

Questions about this method, or requests to see the source documents behind any claim: info@ceramicstory.com, or +61 8 9278 2500 during business hours. Postal address: GreenValley, Level 28, 140 St Georges Terrace, Perth WA 6000, Australia.