The story of Bayswater Contracting — today known worldwide as BCM Group — begins not with heavy machinery, but with horses, drays, and a family business start-up of landscaping gardens in Perth, Western Australia. In 1926, Frederick List and his sons, Albert and Harold, established F. List and Sons. Their initial vision was straightforward: to build gardens for local homeowners, hauling soil and materials with horse-drawn drays. Yet even in these earliest years, the company showed an instinct for evolution. Before long, gardening gave way to driveway construction, with the Lists moving into bitumen-sealed pavements — a step that would lay the foundation for nearly a century of civil and mining excellence.

By the 1930s, F. List and Sons had left landscaping behind, focusing instead on pavements, parking areas, and small road construction. The onset of World War II briefly reshaped the family’s path: in 1942, Harold List was drafted into the Royal Australian Air Force, where his work involved supervising the construction of airfield pavements under wartime conditions — an experience that reinforced the company’s technical strength. After the war, Harold rejoined Albert, and together they steered the business into larger-scale projects. By the 1950s, the company had acquired a gravel pit outside Perth, securing its own source of construction materials. This period also marked expansion into regional Western Australia, where Harold took charge of remote works — notably grain storage facilities and road projects across the Wheatbelt. Their reputation for reliability in demanding environments began to take shape.

In 1962, Harold’s son, Paul List, joined the family business at age 18, starting as a laborer and working his way up through equipment operation, supervision, and eventually management. The 1960s brought challenging projects in the Pilbara and Kimberley regions, including work in Marble Bar — famously the hottest town in Australia. These contracts tested the company’s resilience in extreme conditions, shaping its character for the decades ahead. In 1970, the firm was acquired by Landall Holdings, though Harold and his son remained in leadership. When Landall collapsed financially in 1975, the Lists seized the chance to buy back the company’s assets. Reborn under a new name — Bayswater Contracting, after its Perth base — the business returned to family hands, focusing heavily on remote-area civil works. Though Harold passed away in 1979, his legacy endured. Ownership transitioned to his son and widow, Paul List and Elwyn List, setting the stage for Bayswater Contracting’s next era of growth. 

The 1980s were years of expansion and success. Bayswater Contracting became a leading contractor for grain storage facilities, securing nearly every major Wheatbelt project in 1981. That same year, the company reached a milestone: its first monthly million-dollar payment, a symbol of its arrival as a major force in civil contracting. The business diversified into major road contracts, housing subdivisions, and large-scale earthworks, including landmark projects in Broome and Derby. Bayswater also formed strong partnerships with mining developers, marking its first significant steps into the resources sector.

The company’s first international breakthrough came in 1990, when Minproc invited Bayswater to Ghana to execute civil works for Ashanti Goldfields’ Sansu project. Initially uncertain about venturing into West Africa, the Lists recognized the opportunity — and seized it. That first contract included tailings dams, water storage dams, and processing plant civil works. Success quickly led to more projects: Iduapriem, Bogoso, Tarkwa, and Damang. By the mid-1990s, Bayswater had made the pivotal decision to wind down operations in Australia and focus its future on West Africa. It was in this period that the BCM identity was born.

Through the 2000s, BCM transitioned from civil works into full-scale contract mining. Major investments were made in heavy equipment — from Cat 777 trucks to O&K 200-tonne excavators. Mining contracts spanned Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Niger, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan, often in some of the world’s most logistically and climatically challenging environments. Flagship projects included Bibiani (Ghana), Loulo (Mali), and the Semira Hill project (Niger), as well as several civil contracts in Kukuluma and Nyabigena (Tanzania). In Central Asia, BCM navigated the complexities of operating in landlocked Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, moving fleets of equipment across continents to deliver successful outcomes for global clients.

The early 2010s brought BCM into the era of mega-projects. Nowhere was this clearer than at Tonkolili Iron Ore Project in Sierra Leone, where BCM mobilized one of the largest contractor fleets in West Africa: over 75 Cat 777 trucks and multiple RH120 excavators. Starting with civil works and expanding into full mining operations, BCM delivered at unprecedented scale. Even as global markets shifted and projects passed between international partners, BCM’s resilience, adaptability, and technical depth ensured its continuity. BCM’s entry into Jordan came shortly after the Agbaou project, the Jordan Project was secured after BCM was invited to tender by the Estonian owners of an oil shale mining venture. Initially approached as an independent bidder, BCM later entered a 50-50 joint venture with Al Own, a local enterprise that had partnership with BCM and had the local content support.   After extensive negotiations, the contract was awarded around 2016. Mobilization proved logistically demanding, involving both newly purchased Caterpillar equipment and the redeployment of BCM’s Uzbekistan fleet, which had to be transported across borders and lakes. Despite the challenges, the project has been a success and stands as another achievement in BCM’s operations. 

From a small family garden landscape business in 1926 to one of the world’s most respected contract miners, BCM’s history is a story of adaptation, persistence, and opportunity seized. The guiding thread across generations has been simple: do the job well, wherever the job is — whether that was laying bitumen driveways in Perth, building grain silos in the Wheatbelt, or moving millions of tons of earth in West Africa. Nearly a century on, BCM remains a testament to the vision of the 1st generation of List Family, who began with horses and gardens and set in motion a global story still unfolding today. Today, BCM stands as a fourth-generation family enterprise, still guided by the same spirit of strength and versatility that Frederick List and his sons (Harold & Albert List) instilled a century ago. What began with gardens and gravel in Perth has grown into a global mining force, trusted across Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia. With each generation building on the legacy of the last, BCM continues to uphold its family values while embracing the scale, innovation, and professionalism of a world-class mining contractor — ensuring the story that began in 1926 is still being written today.