Ellison shrugs off MinRes downgrade for haul road charm offensive

by Mark Wembridge, AFR Resources reporter, May 29th, 2025 – 8.00pm

Mineral Resources founder Chris Ellison was wrapping up a pep talk to investors and analysts ahead of a site visit to the miner’s $3 billion Onslow Iron project when news of a cut to its iron ore production hit the ASX.

It was a difficult moment for Ellison, whose efforts to restore confidence in the troubled project and the accident-prone haul road that links its mine to a port were undermined in real-time by an update that highlighted its problems.

MinRes is spending $230m to repair and resurface its damaged Onslow haul road. 

The debt-heavy Onslow project has been touted by the company as an ingenious method of extracting iron ore from an isolated area of West Australia’s Pilbara region.

But its success depends on the 147-kilometre private haul road, which links the Ken’s Bore mine to a port near Onslow and has been a headache for MinRes from the outset.

The original contractor walked off the job over the road’s construction, while its surface soon crumbled under the weight of 330-tonne jumbo road trains running every few minutes.

If it proves successful, the road will provide MinRes with a flow of cash to service its vast debt and keep the iron ore and lithium miner afloat during weaker periods in the commodity price cycle.

Such is its importance, Ellison and the company’s new chairman Malcolm Bundey personally accompanied a 50-strong group of analysts and investors on a tour along the road on Wednesday.

“There are not too many chairmen, or even board members, who typically participate in large investor and analyst tours,” said Matthew Frydman, mining analyst at MST Financial, who was on the site visit.

Ellison was, in the words of another attendee, “less bombastic” than his usual self – perhaps not surprising given the output downgrade the previous day, and following a string of corporate governance scandals that have centred on the New Zealander.

Ellison is contending with the fallout from his involvement in an alleged offshore tax evasion scheme revealed by The Australian Financial Review, as well as a probe by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. He remains MinRes’ largest shareholder with an 11.5 per cent stake, but has pledged to quit as managing director by mid-2026.

The corporate governance failings at MinRes have obliterated billions in shareholder value, and the balance sheet is straining under the weight of $5.8 billion of debt.

Shares take a hit

The site visit – for which attendees paid $1000 – kicked off as the miner’s shares were taking a beating from its iron ore downgrade, closing down about 5 per cent on Wednesday.

Onslow is now expected to produce as little as 7.8 million tonnes of iron ore for MinRes this financial year, down 10 per cent from its recent expectations and one-third less than the miner had initially hoped.

MinRes blamed the downgrade on its use of contractors to transport its iron ore to port – a problem itself sparked by lowered speed limits and half a dozen crashes on the road network.

Still, analysts on the tour were upbeat about the company’s progress.

“It was clearly an important day for MinRes management – the whole show was on display, from pit to port,” said Rob Stein, an analyst at Macquarie who attended the trip.

Stein noted that MinRes was keen to outline how it planned to address problems with production, specifically how it would reach its 35 million-tonne annual target. He cited overcoming constraints at the miner’s transhippers – boats that transport iron ore to larger vessels offshore – as the key to hitting or exceeding that target, rather than the road.

“Everybody was pretty impressed with what they’ve done. Even for someone like me, who has been perhaps more critical than others,” said Jonathan Sharp, a CLSA analyst who also attended. “MinRes has been over-promising and under-delivering [on its iron ore output]. But that doesn’t take away from what we saw. What they have achieved [with Onslow Iron] in 23 months is no mean feat.”

‘Generational asset’

MinRes said in a statement following the site tour that Onslow Iron is a “generational asset” for the company, “and its delivery over the past two years is a testament to the hard work and ingenuity of our people”.

After arriving in Onslow on a flight from Perth on MinRes Air – the miner’s private airline that attendees praised for its “decent legroom” – the tour group viewed the port operations before boarding buses to traverse the haul road. Along the way, they inspected some of the $230 million repair work undertaken by the company.

Attendees said that analysts and investors on the tour, which included big shareholders AustralianSuper and L1 Capital, appeared impressed by much-needed improvements to the road. The road is 49 per cent owned by Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners, an investment unit of the Wall Street bank. AustralianSuper and L1 declined to comment.

“It’s a formidable piece of infrastructure. The parts that have been upgraded look to be constructed as well as any other piece of highway that I’ve ever driven on. It obviously has teething issues, but any kind of innovative or large-scale, large capital project is bound to have teething issues,” said MST’s Frydman.

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Source: https://www.afr.com/companies/mining/ellison-shrugs-off-minres-downgrade-for-haul-road-charm-offensive-20250528-p5m329

Sunday 1st June 2025: Here's the current breakdown of major broker recommendations and target prices for MinRes according to FNArena:

MIN closed on Friday at $22.19 so the figures in the final column titled "% to reach target" are based on how much the MIN SP would have to rise or fall to reach that brokers Target Price.

That's a massive range of views across those 9 brokers and banks, from an "Overweight" and an "Outperform" from MS and Macquarie, both with $35 target prices, down to two "Sell" recommendations from GS and Jarden, with target prices of $21.00 and $15.50 respectively.

Those last two (GS and Jarden) are not covered daily by FNA (FNArena.com), but the first 7 are, and below are the FNA summaries of all broker updates from those 7 that were released during May 2025 (i.e. the latest updates):

I would point out that MS (Morgan Stanley) does have a reason to be bullish since MSIP (Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners) own 49% of the Haul Road Trust.

Also, I have heard that Bell Potter, who has a "Buy" Rec and a $29.50 target price for MIN, is the go-to broker for much of MinRes and Chris Ellison's trading in the many companies they hold shares in or have previously held shares in.

Along with MS, the other big bulls on MinRes are Macquarie, and that is interesting, as they seem to be accepting that Iron Ore prices are more likely to go lower than higher over the next year or three: https://thewest.com.au/business/iron-ore/macquarie-predicts-iron-ore-price-to-go-sub-us100t-in-2025-c-16997375 [06-Dec-2024]

Excerpt:

Macquarie predicts iron ore price to go sub-$US100/t in 2025

by Simone Grogan, The West Australian, Fri, 6 December 2024 8:30PM

Iron ore stockpiles waiting to be transported at Rio Tinto Group's port facility in Karratha, Western Australia, on Friday, Oct. 20, 2023. Rio Tinto Group, BHP Group Ltd. and Fortescue Metals Group Ltd. produce almost two-thirds of the world’s seaborne iron ore from Western Australia, and margins remain enviable. For the first time in a generation, though, the specter of disruption looms over mining’s most reliable profit generator. Photographer: Carla Gottgens/Bloomberg Credit: CARLA GOTTGENS

Analysts at Macquarie reckon Rio Tinto’s gargantuan new iron ore mine in Guinea could tip iron ore supplies into a surplus and push WA’s lifeblood commodity into double digit prices

The Australian bank’s commodities desk has put iron ore down as a “medium-term struggler” over the next six to nine months in a sweeping review of the sector.

It comes as the iron ore majors push ahead with big expansions, and uncertainty hangs over how President Donald Trump’s anticipated tariffs will impact China’s appetite for steel.

Macquarie expects a tonne of iron ore will stay close to the $US100 ($155.55) benchmark in the first quarter, but could start to cool to $US96 as the risks from trade tariffs become clearer and new waves of supply put pressure on prices.

BHP and Rio Tinto have been tipped as best-placed in the past to weather lower prices due to their relatively low operating costs.

“Large project additions, principally Simandou reaching shipments of 80mt by 2028, create the risk of a structural surplus, until prices force a rebalancing,” the note said.

Rio Tinto’s new Guinea mine Simandou — otherwise known as the ‘Pilbara Killer’ — is due for its first shipments at the end of 2025.

Mineral Resources’ new Onslow mine is due to hit output of 35 million tonnes per annum of the steelmaking commodity, BHP’s South Flank will be running at full pelt of 80mtpa and higher volumes are also expected from Fortescue’s Iron Bridge magnetite operation.

“Supply increase may be more prevalent in 2H with Onslow operating steadily at 35Mtpa and the first and the first shipment of the much-anticipated Simandou. Further out, extend of oversupply rests on how quickly Simandou reaches its 120 mtpa capacity,” Macquarie said.

--- end of excerpt ---

Source: https://thewest.com.au/business/iron-ore/macquarie-predicts-iron-ore-price-to-go-sub-us100t-in-2025-c-16997375 [06-Dec-2024]

Here's the iron ore price over the past year:

Source: https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/iron-ore

It is trending down and we still have Simandou to come online. And that's going to be a large amount of supply added to the mix.

Meanwhile, while we know that the Onslow Iron project and the associated private 147 km haul road from Ken's Bore to Onslow, plus the trucks (triple road trains), the transhippers, and all of the port facilities and other infrastructure have been the main reasons for the massive debt blow-out and cost overruns that have pushed MinRes into a loss-making position at last report, a number of metrics have been heading in the wrong direction for 3 or 4 years now:

Source: https://fnarena.com/index.php/analysis-data/consensus-forecasts/stock-analysis/?code=MIN [trend lines and highlights added by me]

Of those, the most concerning are big drops in their EPS, NPM, ROCE, ROIC, ROA, ROE and FCF over the past 4 years, with most of the damage in the last 3 years, alongside the massive rise in debt.

For context, MinRes made their FID on Onslow Iron in August 2022 - see here: https://www.mining.com/minres-greenlights-2-1bn-onslow-iron-ore-project/ [29-Aug-2022] ... which was part of FY23 (which started on July 1st 2022), however those metrics were heading the wrong way in FY22 and many of them were also heading the wrong way in FY21, well before any spending related to Onslow Iron.

So for those who think that everything will be fine if they can just get the Onslow haul road up to it's planned 35 Mtpa run rate, maybe you are right, however it may also be worth considering the possibility that this company had some issues even before they started building Onslow Iron, as demonstrated by those graphs.

MinRes to inject $150m into struggling lithium mine [AFR]

by Mark Wembridge, AFR Resources reporter, Jun 16, 2025 – 8.00pm

Heavily indebted Mineral Resources will pump $150 million into its struggling Mt Marion Lithium operation to keep it afloat through the commodity’s extended downturn, according to a filing by its Chinese partner.

Ganfeng Lithium will also help bail out the West Australian project with a $150 million collateral-free loan to be matched by joint venture partner MinRes, according to a statement to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

The Chinese group said in the filing that the Mt Marion venture posted a $44.6 million loss in 2024 and its operations remained in the red for the first quarter of 2025.

Mt Marion is located in a lithium hotspot around Kalgoorlie-Boulder in Western Australia’s Goldfields region. 

Loss-making MinRes confirmed it would match Ganfeng’s $150 million, but did not clarify whether the money was a loan or a contribution to the joint venture.

Ganfeng said its funds would be “mainly used for the daily operation” of Mt Marion while MinRes said it would “primarily fund capital expenditure, including mine development and processing plant upgrades”.

MinRes said the $150 million would be sourced from its working capital reserves and would not increase its debt.

The injection of cash into its troubled lithium venture comes as the miner’s balance sheet totters under the weight of $5.8 billion in debt while its market capitalisation languishes at $4.6 billion.

A series of scandals linked to its founder, Chris Ellison, and troubles with its flagship $3 billion Onslow Iron project have dragged MinRes shares down 60 per cent over the past year.

The decision to plough more cash into the diversified miner’s struggling lithium operations comes as the price of spodumene falls further from its recent lows to $US580 a tonne, according to S&P Global.

Lithium traded above $US8000 per tonne roughly two years ago but fell precipitously as a glut of the metal from mines in Africa and China hit the market. The slowdown in demand for electric vehicles has also weighed on the key battery material.

Citi analysts said last month that WA’s Greenbushes mine – a joint venture between US-listed Albemarle, ASX-listed IGO and China’s Tianqi – was the only Australian lithium asset generating cash at current prices.

Macquarie analysts noted that Mt Marion was “running with potential negative operating cash flow”, with estimated production and shipping costs of $US745 per tonne. The share prices of all ASX-listed lithium operations are down this year, Macquarie noted, except Liontown Resources.

MinRes, Australia’s largest crushing contractor and a major iron ore producer, is rumoured to be considering the sale of lithium assets – including a stake in its Wodgina operations – to shore up its balance sheet despite previously dismissing such talk.

Mt Marion is located in a lithium hotspot around Kalgoorlie-Boulder in Western Australia’s Goldfields region that includes MinRes’ mothballed Bald Hill and Liontown’s Buldania project. MinRes in October paused its plan to extend its Mt Marion mining operations underground.

“Decisive action to lower costs ensures our two largest lithium sites remain well-placed to continue to operate through the cycle and to capitalise when prices rebound,” MinRes said on Monday.

Albemarle, a joint venture partner in Wodgina, has pressured the Perth-headquartered miner to cut production until the price of lithium recovers.

In its statement to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, Ganfeng valued Mt Marion’s net assets at $561 million and flagged concerns about the mine’s future.

“The deterioration of the international economic environment in the future may lead to a decline in the prices of lithium and lithium products, which will cause Mt Marion Lithium’s performance to fall short of expectations,” Ganfeng said.

Ganfeng said its $150 million loan had an interest rate of 7 per cent to be paid quarterly by Mt Marion over five years.

In its interim results, MinRes said it produced 100,000 tonnes of 6 per cent lithium spodumene equivalent from Mt Marion, at an average shipped cost of $US667 ($1027) per tonne.

MinRes is not the only Australian lithium producer to shut its plants to ride out the storm. Others include Core Lithium, which suspended operations at its Finniss mine in the Northern Territory; Liontown, which wound back production at its Kathleen Valley mine; and Pilbara Minerals, which paused operations at its Ngungaju ore processing facility.

Albemarle has mothballed a lithium hydroxide processing train at Kemerton and Arcadium, the world’s third-largest lithium company, shut its Mt Cattlin project.

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Source: https://www.afr.com/companies/mining/minres-to-inject-150m-into-struggling-lithium-mine-20250616-p5m7ov

It's not a good time to be a company like MIN, heavily exposed to lithium and iron ore. Both could be lower for longer, and in iron ore's case, prices are widely expected to deteriorate further as even more supply comes online, especially the massive Simandou iron ore project in Guinea, one of the largest iron ore mines currently under development, due to be in production by the end of this calendar year (2025). Simandou is planned to produce 60 mtpa of iron ore once the mine is running at full capacity (allowing for a ramp up of approx. 30 months). The 600 kilometres of multi-use rail line being constructed to get that Simandou ore to port is expected to allow for up to 120 mtpa of iron ore to be exported from Guinea that is NOT being mined today, half from Simandou and half from other projects. [Source: Rio]

It's one thing to be so heavily in debt, but it's a lot worse when the two commodities you are heavily exposed to are lithium and iron ore at this point in time.

Disc: Not held.

I just read the following from @Jimmy in his News Summary DJ Australian Equities Roundup post:

0125 GMT - Citi expects lithium prices will continue to drift lower until there are more material supply cuts from producers. The bank downgrades its lithium-price forecasts for the next three years by 15%-20%. That is the biggest revision made by Citi as the bank revisits its commodity price projections. Citi downgrades its spodumene forecast for the next three months to $600/metric ton from $700/ton previously. "We see prolonged lower-for-longer prices as needed to rebalance the market," the bank says. As a result, it downgrades Australian producers IGO and Pilbara Minerals to neutral from buy, and Liontown Resources to sell from neutral. ([email protected]; @RhiannonHoyle)

That lines up well with other analysts views that I am reading - that lithium prices are unlikely to bounce back any time soon. Not good for MinRes. The following (from the same post this morning) concerns RIO's Simandou and iron ore, and is interesting but doesn't really change anything - there's still plenty of additional iron ore supply on its way, regardless of demand, whether Simandou ramps up as expected or a few months behind schedule makes little difference to that fact.

0155 GMT - While Rio Tinto expects first output at Simandou this year, UBS reckons exports from the giant iron-ore project will be modest through 2026. Satellite images show good progress on infrastructure development, UBS says in a note. However, there is significant work that needs to be completed at the mine sites, especially Blocks 3 and 4, it says. The bank expects the project to be impacted by rainfall over the next six months, after particularly heavy rains during May-to-October wet season last year. UBS also highlights political uncertainty. The military junta that took power in Guinea in 2021 is planning a constitutional referendum and return to civilian rule. ([email protected]; @RhiannonHoyle)

So it all gets back to the Onslow haul road for MinRes, as commodity prices are unlikely to come to their rescue any time soon; if anything, lithium and iron ore prices are more likely to fall from here.

MinRes still have a very viable mining services business, but it should be remembered that MinRes' mining services are used at all of MinRes 100%-owned and their part-owned mines (both iron ore and lithium mines) and those have been progressively shutting down. Onslow is still going to be viable at current iron ore prices, but ONLY if they can get the haul road operating at nameplate capacity, and they're still a long way short of that right now, regardless of their bullish guidance.

So if everything goes right for MinRes, they could be trading at multiples of their current share price. However the chances of everything going right for them are reasonably slim, as I see it. They have commodity prices moving against them, and expected to deteriorate further, and they still haven't got their trucking on the Onslow Haul Road up to planned capacity yet, and they need to achieve those truck movement increases without further accidents that could get the road shut down, and all while still trying to upgrade that road to allow the road to withstand the weather extremes that are common in that area of WA (because they didn't spend the required money to build it properly in the first place - which is why their road building contractor walked off the job forcing MinRes to take over the road construction themselves - and they did a poor job of that).

And then there's their debt - over $5 Billion in debt - MinRes' net debt as at 31 March 2025 was $5.4 billion - and while yes, it's true that no repayments are due until 2027, that's not too far away now, FY26 starts in 10 days. And they posted a loss for H1 of FY25 and may post a loss for the full year. The biggest issue for MinRes is that their refinancing options are both reducing and getting more expensive. Some believe they would like to refinance at least part of that debt, others say they don't need to. If everything goes right for them, they won't need to, and they'll be just fine. But if they cop a few more setbacks, things could pan out very differently.

Disc: Not holding.

@Bear77 This AFR update on Friday re the Kali situation looks like it caps off another bad week at MinRes, with ASIC now investigating it all further. Like you, MinRes is not a holding but a hard pass for me.

The photographer, the mother-in-law and Ellison’s lithium windfall

The Kali Metals IPO was a stroke of good fortune for the MinRes managing director and many of his friends and family. Now the regulator is taking a closer look.

Mark Di Stefano and Mark Wembridge

Jun 20, 2025 – 12.00pm

For a man who had spent decades socialising with the Kardashians and other members of the Hollywood A-list, celebrity photographer Russell James could have been forgiven for being underwhelmed by the company at the Perth dinner he had found himself with.

It was 2021, and James, sporting long blond hair, had returned from the United States and found himself working for Chris Ellison. There he was, at Lamont’s Wine Store in Cottesloe, on the other side of the table from his billionaire employer and former foreign minister Julie Bishop, at the time an ambassador for Ellison’s Mineral Resources. Beside her was Paul Rider Boon, a Broome didgeridoo player who goes by the stage name Groovylips.

The New Zealand mining magnate had hired James, a police officer before becoming a glamour photographer, to capture sumptuous black and white portraits of MinRes staff. The photographic series, I am MinRes, was an unusual move for a company specialising in contracting and lithium and iron ore mining. How was it that someone best known for appearing in America’s Next Top Model was now MinRes’ brand director?

Lucky for James, he stuck around. It wasn’t quite hanging out with Kylie Jenner, but the new social circle helped deliver the photographer a handsome windfall only three years later when he became one of a select few of Ellison’s family, friends and employees to make a seriously lucky bet.

That bet was Kali Metals, a lithium mining hopeful and the hottest ticket in town, with a massively oversubscribed $15 million float early last year. James snagged a decent holding. Within hours of trading, MinRes was buying up Kali shares, more than tripling the value of the stock. James, and plenty of others close to Ellison, MinRes’ managing director, made a fortune.

Within three days, Kali’s market capitalisation jumped from $36 million to $112 million. Among those who held shares, and sold out, were James, Ellison’s long-time business partner, Tim Roberts, and Rod Jones, another big wheel in Perth and the founder of education business Navitas. Inexplicably, Ellison’s mother-in-law, Jennifer Robinson, a mining novice, was briefly the company’s fifth-largest shareholder. She also sold.

MinRes founder Chris Ellison with wife Tia, alongside professional photographer Russell James, across from former foreign minister Julie Bishop next to didgeridoo player Paul Rider Boon, known as Groovy Lips. 

New shareholder registry data obtained by AFR Weekend shows plenty of other MinRes figures have since sold out. MinRes chief financial officer Mark Wilson has dumped shares purchased through his investment vehicle, Yolson, as has the company’s lithium chief, Joshua Thurlow. So too has Yenna Ong, a former MinRes accountant and long-time Ellison associate.

The share price was forced higher as MinRes hoovered up Kali stock, first at an average price of 42.5¢, a 70 per cent premium to the IPO price, then at 55.7¢, splashing $9.4 million in total for a 14 per cent stake. Since then, Kali’s share price has slumped, hard. Today, the company has a market capitalisation of about $6 million. MinRes’ stake is worth $1.55 million.

And while the riches that flowed from Kali IPO have been the talk of the market for a year, they are now on the radar of the corporate regulator.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission last year began investigating MinRes after The Australian Financial Review revealed Ellison’s involvement in a decade-long tax evasion scheme that enriched him and four executives but cost shareholders more than $7 million.

But two people close to the investigation, who spoke on condition of anonymity citing the sensitive nature of the inquiries, said the regulator’s attention had turned to the share trading in Kali. They described it as an “emerging issue” in an otherwise sprawling investigation.

Ellison has pledged to quit MinRes by next year, although he has privately indicated he wants to stick around. With ASIC digging into how so many of his friends and family emerged as Kali shareholders at the most opportune of times, the investigation could spell the end of the road for the maverick mining mogul’s time at the company he founded in 1992.

AFR Weekend is not suggesting those who acquired the shares engaged in any wrongdoing, only that ASIC is now investigating these matters.

Kali Metals began as a spin-off from another mining minor, Kalamazoo Resources, when in 2021 it carved off its lithium assets and merged them with other assets held by another gold producer, Karora Resources. Both Kalamazoo and Karora remain among Kali’s largest shareholders.

Kali holds vast tracts of ground in the Western Australian lithium hotspot around Kalgoorlie and Norseman, close to two MinRes mines – its loss-making Mount Marion venture and its mothballed Bald Hill project.

It also has ground near Marble Bar in the Pilbara, and operates in Victoria and NSW, focusing on the discovery of lithium, gold, tin and other critical minerals. In the six months to December 31, it lost $1.65 million.

Small, loss-making explorers are commonplace in WA. So why was there such immense – and fleeting – demand for Kali shares? At just $US950 a tonne, the price of lithium spodumene concentrate wasn’t exactly sky-high when the company debuted on the ASX. It was a far cry from peaks of more than $US8000 a year earlier at the height of the lithium boom.

Even as the market cratered, the Kali IPO became the talk of Perth. Brokers allocated the entire allotment of shares in less than 20 minutes. MinRes, however, had been barred from taking part before the float.

Asked now about its decision, a Kali spokesman said the “strong interest” meant that the company did not “accept MinRes or any other cornerstone investor in the IPO”. “Those approaches were declined,” he added.

Kali wasn’t the only lithium explorer that had caught the eye of Ellison. MinRes would pop up as a minority shareholder in prospects including Develop Global, Delta Lithium, Global Lithium and Azure Minerals, building stakes to block rival suitors from lobbing takeover offers. That may well have been the reason why Kali decided to exclude MinRes from its IPO.

If MinRes wanted a stake in Kali, it would be forced to buy at a much higher price on the open market, presenting IPO investors the chance to make a quick profit. On January 8, Kali went public at 25¢ per share. The stampede began immediately, driven mostly by MinRes. A well-timed release of preliminary exploration data showing the presence of lithium in rock chips in its tenements would have also helped drive Kali’s stock higher.

This type of aggressive sharemarket activity had all the hallmarks of a classic Ellison manoeuvre. He is known to go after companies, regardless of the price. But it was two large block trades that raised red flags.

Towards the end of the first day of trading, Bell Potter appeared on both sides of transactions for 4 million and 3.5 million shares, respectively. The broker’s team in Perth had co-run the book-build for the Kali IPO, making the decisions about who would get the sought-after shares. Bell Potter’s Brad Shallard is also a long-time favourite for Ellison’s broking needs.

One block trade, for 4 million shares, matched the number of stocks owned by Roberts, heir to the Multiplex fortune and a former MinRes director. The other matched that owned by Jones, through Carjay Investments. Neither Roberts’ Warburton vehicle nor Carjay appeared on the shareholder register in the weeks after the IPO. Both had sold out their entire stake, quickly.

Assuming a sale price of 42.3¢ – a figure confirmed by brokerage data – the investment vehicles of Roberts and Jones pocketed about $690,000 and $600,000 respectively, a 70 per cent premium from the 25¢ purchase price.

Speaking on his specialist resources podcast Money of Mine, former Macquarie banker Travis Ricciardo said: “It’s pretty rare that anyone in the top 10 shareholders in an IPO crosses the full amount of their holding on day one of trade. I don’t know if we’ll see that one again in our lifetimes.”

Kali remains ambivalent about MinRes’ decision to buy a stake.

“Other than becoming a shareholder in Kali post-listing, there are no links between Kali and MinRes, and any decision by MinRes to invest in Kali was solely its own,” a spokesman says. “Kali therefore does not hold the view that purchases by MinRes in the open market is a related party transaction.”

The corporate regulator has a guide on how to best allocate shares before a float. It’s known as Report 606, and includes plenty of direction on fairness, transparency and how to manage any potential conflicts of interest. Allocation to entities in the best interest of the company – long-term investors or those who can contribute capital in future – is important.

The Kali IPO allocation was run by Bell Potter and Canaccord Genuity. It was “heavily oversubscribed”. James, MinRes’ photographer, secured 1 million shares worth $250,000. It placed him among the 20 largest investors.

Also on the list was Ellison, through his private Wabelo corporate vehicle, and other prominent Perth businesspeople including Mario and Alison Di Lallo. They picked up 1.2 million shares. Alison Di Lallo is a friend of Ellison’s wife Tia, who was also there with James, Bishop and Groovylips at the Lamont’s Wine Store dinner three years before the Kali IPO.

James and the Di Lallos were absent from the register at the end of the month, suggesting they sold their Kali shares in the first weeks of trading.

Then there was Ellison’s own mother-in-law, Jennifer Robinson. No records exist of her previous mining investments until she became Kali’s fifth-largest stockholder with 3.5 million shares worth $875,000. She had sold 2.7 million shares for an undisclosed amount in the first weeks of trading, booking tidy profits as her son-in-law’s company sent the price soaring.

New shareholder registry data now shows Ellison’s Wabelo vehicle has continued to sell, reducing the number of Kali shares it owns from 7 million to 5.2 million. Wilson, Thurlow and Ong have also sold their stakes, a combined investment of 1.2 million shares, that data shows.

According to MinRes, it was chairman James McClements – who did not participate in the IPO – who signed off on the purchase of Kali shares.

“Once we became aware of [MinRes management buying Kali shares], it was not going to pass the pub test,” McClements told an investor meeting in November. “We instigated controls. We put blackouts around the management transacting in their shares for an extended period of time.”

“We allowed MinRes to continue to acquire the position that it desired to accumulate. MinRes did not transact with any of the management, in relation to those shares. In relation to actions taken by non-MinRes management, that’s not for me to comment.”

MinRes this week declined to confirm the length of the sale blackouts, say when they were in force or if senior staff profited from share sales. MinRes also declined to say whether the participation of its senior staff in the Kali Metals float was considered a related-party transaction.

Over the past year, MinRes has confronted one issue after another. The company’s big bet on a remote iron ore mine, Ken’s Bore, has put significant financial pressure on its accounts. Shares have fallen two-thirds. The regulator has served Ellison and Wilson, MinRes’ chief financial officer, with Section 19 notices, which require them to co-operate with its inquiries.

Then there’s the exit of three directors who were members of an ethics and governance committee tasked with overseeing Ellison’s behaviour. They quit en masse earlier this year in protest over the miner’s corporate culture.

MinRes has appointed former Deloitte partner Malcolm Bundey, a mining cleanskin, as its chairman. He is said to be taking a more hands-on approach to weeding out MinRes’ related-party transactions.

Still, the departed members of the ethics and governance committee have not been replaced, and it remains to be seen whether Bundey will be able to temper Ellison’s dominance of the board. It may take action from ASIC to force Ellison’s hand and bring real change at the embattled miner.

This is mostly old news @Karmast but the new news is the reminder that the ASIC investigation that began last year into MinRes' & Chris Ellison's personal involvement in the Kali Metals float is still ongoing and could (should) be potentially harmful to both the company and its founder based on the facts as outlined again in this article. A reminder that the grifting and personal enrichment of CE and his friends either at the expense of or with the assistance of MinRes has been widespread and ongoing since MIN IPO'd. It was no doubt going on before MIN IPO'd on the ASX, but the company names were different back then.

Chris has always been all about siezing every opportunity, and as his bio shows, bending or ignoring the truth has been part of the narrative since he crossed the ditch. He lied about his capabilities to get jobs he was unqualified for and just winged it, and was clearly proud of that history of lying and bluffing to get himself into situations that he was then able to capitalise on, whether it be employment opportunities or later business opportunities where he would take on massive contracts without the financial backing to cover the costs of the setup for that work. And yet he would make it work and everything worked out well for him. The most obvious example of that prior to MinRes was when Chris' company (at that time) Karratha Rigging ended up providing most of the cranes being used on the massive North West Shelf construction in the mid-1980's.

As well as being entrepreneurial Ellison also seemed to always be in the right place at the right time, starting his first company, Karratha Rigging, in 1978 providing cranes for worksites just as the North West Shelf project was gaining momentum. I won't go through the entire history - but those who are interested can watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28fUG5OsRDA

That's a clip from the middle of the video when he sold that crane hire business (Karratha Rigging) at the age of 25. Good times!

Anyway, there's no doubt he's been an astute business man and made plenty of great decisions along the way, and had his fair share of good luck as well, particularly in terms of timing (being in the right place at the right time). He's always been good at networking and leveraging information into profits, and the Kali Metals float is a high profile example of that where he might not have raised so much attention around it if he hadn't included so many of his family and friends in the grift. It was too blatant and obvious and the use of MinRes to cause the share price of Kali to triple on IPO providing windfall profits to the family and friends of Ellison who were "lucky" enough to have bought in the IPO was certainly bad optics at the very least and at worst, well... let's see what ASIC have to say.

Here are the images that didn't get copied through into your post from the article @Karmast - first here's the link to the AFR article:

https://www.afr.com/companies/mining/the-photographer-the-mother-in-law-and-ellison-s-lithium-windfall-20250523-p5m1qn

MinRes founder Chris Ellison with wife Tia, alongside professional photographer Russell James, across from former foreign minister Julie Bishop next to didgeridoo player Paul Rider Boon, known as Groovy Lips

Just a tip for next time @Karmast when you copy and paste into posts or straws (or valuations) here on SM, images won't paste in, well they will, but then when you save the post, straw or val, the images are no longer there. The way around that is to copy and paste each section of text, then "copy image" on each image and paste that image in as a separate step to the text pastes, can be time consuming, but it's how I do it, and it works.

The good thing about straws is that you can go back and edit them at any time (like add images in) without affecting the "like" count. Especially handy in these sort of situations or any time you spot a typo or spelling error or gramatical error. The other day I was re-reading one of my posts that I had started with "Read this tonight..." when I was referring to the fact that I had read something and thought it was worth sharing, but upon re-reading it the following day I realised that it looked like I was telling people to "READ THIS TONIGHT", when I had meant Read - pronounced Red - but it looked like Read - pronounced Reed - so I changed it to "I read this tonight..."

I do that all the time - go back and fix up my posts - not change the meaning and purpose of them, just fix stuff up. It's something that is very handy to be able to do and I do appreciate that @Strawman thank you.

Thanks @Bear77 and great tips.