Update: Shareholders overwhelmingly voted against the company’s remuneration report at its Thursday AGM.
In a move that may or may not be amusing depending on whether you’ve lost money in Mineral Resources (ASX:MIN), the company on Thursday said it is accelerating its hunt for a new Chairperson.
This comes as Managing Director (MD) Chris Ellison has really been at the forefront of public ire, given a series of reports detailing historical tax misappropriations. That and many other things.
But he’s in no rush to leave. However, Chairperson James McClements appears to be so.
“Most notably among the outcomes, the Board decided it is in the Company’s best interests to accelerate our leadership succession across the Chair and Managing Director roles,” Chair James McClements said.
“As a result, I will step down as Chair once a suitable successor is identified. We intend for this to occur before the 2025 AGM.”
But whether Ellison leaves the building in an accelerated fashion wasn’t clear.
Key among the latest allegations to hit Ellison are further comings-to-light that Ellison used MinRes funds to purchase an asset in which Ellison was himself a majority stakeholder, along with his wife.
There’s also more somewhat unclear family concerns, addressed at today’s AGM by McClements – Ellison’s daughter owns Ship Agency Services, which was pointed out but not elaborated on, and his brother is the MD of another company 64% owned by MinRes.
(It was reported by the AFR back in August that Ellison’s daughter, Kristy-Lee Craker, makes millions off the back of MinRes’s shipping operations. The company recently launched a new offloader vessel.)
This adds pressure on top of what is already a now-very-well-known tax scandal involving the miner’s chief. At least one body has urged shareholders not to approve remuneration reports at the company’s Thursday AGM ahead of the event.
And, from what the company has been saying for weeks now, shareholders have been very vocal. That was also the case when it turned out Chris Ellison wouldn’t be leaving for probably more than a year.
But don’t worry: Ellison has made sure the Chair’s replacement is sped up.
It may be hard to decide who shareholders are more pissed off with.
Reportedly, Ellison told AGM attendees this period of his life has been a “dark cloud” – commentary not included in the company’s pre-scripted release to the market.
No kidding. Shares are down -51% YTD (though some of that has to do with low iron ore prices.) But at least half of those losses can be fairly attributed to the various scandals surrounding the company’s chief – one month returns are down -25%.
MIN last traded at $34.30/sh.
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