The managing director of major lithium and iron ore company Mineral Resources will step down over failing to disclose an interest he held in an offshore company that a Mineral Resources subsidiary bought mining equipment from. The internal investigation was sparked by a Nine Newspapers report alleging Mr Ellison and his associates moved company funds into offshore corporations.
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00:00Mineral Resources damning finding against its own managing director.
00:07An internal company investigation found Chris Ellison failed to disclose he had a financial
00:12interest in a British Virgin Islands company that sold almost $4 million worth of mining
00:18equipment to Mineral Resources.
00:20Very serious, particularly in relation to the ASX principles and governance and more
00:24generally in the way that the modern market shareholders see this kind of behaviour, it's
00:29not to be tolerated.
00:31The investigation also found Mr Ellison used company staff to work on his boat and properties
00:37and to manage his personal finances.
00:40That is just absolutely abhorrent.
00:42I mean you just don't do that and that is perhaps the best example of man mistakes public
00:49company for private asset.
00:51The Mineral Resources Board has ordered Mr Ellison to pay almost $9 million in fines
00:56and decided not to pay him almost $10 million in planned executive remuneration and it's
01:03given him up to 18 months to stand down.
01:06I think he should go sooner than that.
01:07I think the company is basically saying he is too important to go immediately.
01:13Mr Ellison voluntarily disclosed the income from the British Virgin Islands company to
01:18the Australian Tax Office in 2021 and later paid almost $4 million in unpaid taxes.
01:25But that was not enough to save the 67-year-old founder of Mineral Resources.
01:30In its statement to the Stock Exchange, the Minres Board said that it formed the view
01:34that at times Mr Ellison had not acted with integrity and had not placed enough separation
01:40between his own personal interests and the interests of the company as a whole, adversely
01:45impacting Minres's reputation.
01:47Mr Ellison said he was deeply sorry and acknowledged he'd made mistakes that had caused him great
01:53personal embarrassment.
01:55Mineral Resources Chair James McClements will also leave the company.