[3] McConnell Dowell was listed on the New Zealand Stock Exchange in 1983 as part of the arrangements to take over Hamilton construction company Hawkins Holdings.

[3] Following the 1987 stock market crash, McDonnell Dowell merged with Inter-Pacific Equity,[4] an Australian investment bank, and sold off National Pacific to Government Life Insurance.

Morrison-Knudsen (USA) took up 48.9% of McConnell Dowell in 1991, but in the mid-1990s sold its share to Dominion Bridge Corporation (Canada) who then held 63%.

[10] Some of the major projects that McConnell Dowell has built include: In the early 2010s, McConnell Dowell was accused of lacking safety culture, and encouraging workers to report injuries as having occurred in their own time to preserve clean injury reports to leverage getting future large contracts.

[16] In 1995, McConnell Dowell's CEO Trevor Morgan was found guilty of an offence in the Land and Environment Court of New South Wales.