Good evening,

It looks like shareholder advisory firm Ownership Matters has been taking a keen interest in the Mineral Resources universe – and its share trading – of late.

To recap, MinRes is the highly successful West Australian mining group that went from pipeline manufacturing to iron ore and lithium production since listing in 2006. All that time, the company’s ringleader has been billionaire businessman Chris Ellison, a sort of mining svengali who clocked in at 71 on the Financial Review Rich List this year.

Given his success, a whole industry has grown around him.

In a “bespoke” report circulated to select clients, Ownership Matters and the firm’s analyst, James Samson, go deep on these connections (see chart below).

The report – which traverses transactions at three lithium hopefuls, Wildcat Resources, Global Advanced Metals and Kali Metals – suggests that MinRes “investors may wish to question the adequacy of related party disclosure requirements in Australia”.

In particular, Ownership Matters notes MinRes snapped up a large number of shares in Wildcat from Global Advanced Metals in October.

James McClements is not only MinRes chairman but a director of Global Advanced Metals. He is the managing partner of Resource Capital Funds, which “through funds it manages owns a majority” of Global Advanced Metals.

The Ownership Matters report goes on to note that the purchase by MinRes – at $158.7 million – represented more than 11 per cent of its cash balance as of June 30. Samson, however, says that MinRes told Ownership Matters that McClements “recused himself from any discussions”.

But because McClements did not “control” Global Advanced Metals, the deal did not require shareholder approval – if he was a related party, it would have.

Happy reading.

Read the full story tomorrow and more on the Street Talk page.

• Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners has signed on to take a 49 per cent stake in MinRes’ $1 billion pit-to-port private haul road.
• The world’s largest pure-play sustainability consultancy ERM, majority owned by KKR, has agreed terms to acquire Melbourne’s Energetics.
• Citi’s equities desk was wall-crossing investors on Wednesday for a capital raising in lithium-ion battery play Novonix.
• Bombora Investment Management’s Clarence Group has agreed to buy back smart-cities specialist LVX Global out of administration.
• John Wylie’s Tanarra Capital has lost its head of private equity, with Ravi Jeyaraj understood to be moving to Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan.

• Indonesia’s wealthy Salim family has scooped a near $273 million dividend from a coal mine it bought from Rio Tinto for $320 million.
• Tanarra Capital is launching a $1 billion fund that promises high single-digit returns by betting on the less-risky end of corporate debt.
• Pollination will launch a $150 million venture capital fund cornerstoned by QIC to invest in energy transition-adjacent start-ups.

The Ownership Matters report, circulated this week, noted that MinRes representatives have told it “that there is an intention to communicate with the market around governance … before the publication of the 2024 annual report or through the annual report”.

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