For those who still own or want to own MIN, while I wish you all the best, the latest insights from today's AFR article are worth deep consideration. Reading these comments, one surely has to ask whether this is a company that can be great for another 10 or 20 years, when you have a leader and culture like this...

While I know some shareholders are upset at the media for piling on, I am glad we still have some solid investigative journalists in Australia and what looks to be some brave staff willing to speak up about what's going on day to day.

Excerpt from AFR Weekend article 23.11.2024

Mineral Resources founder Chris Ellison has always prided himself on speaking plainly. The process can be brutal.

In the middle of last year, he held a meeting of senior executives in the MinRes boardroom, and he wasn’t a happy camper.

A whistleblower complaint filed 12 days later with a Herbert Smith Freehills partner accused Ellison of being a bully.

Ellison’s anger focused on a senior lawyer, whom he ordered to stand in front of them all and say, “I am a f--ing idiot,” the whistleblower claimed.

“Which [she] did, then went to her office and cried for a period. She went home and cried for three days and handed in her notice.

“I am led to believe Chris has threatened to destroy her career unless she signed a confidentiality deed, which I believe she has, essentially gagging her.”

AFR Weekend has been told that the executive, now employed elsewhere, says she is unable to comment on the matter.

In the same meeting Ellison turned on another female executive, declaring, “[she] just needs a good f—k”, the whistleblower claimed. The complaint also described a third woman executive that Ellison had berated in front of other staff, “yet all stand around and do nothing”.

This isn’t the message Ellison was pushing at the MinRes annual meeting on Thursday when he spoke of his concern for the mental health of the MinRes workforce.