Vailo founder Aaron Hickmann facing possible company director ban over medicinal cannabis venture

The founder of lighting company Vailo, who is being pursued over an unpaid land tax bill on a beachside mansion, is also facing a possible ban from being a company director.

Vailo founder Aaron Hickmann and, inset, the Glenelg South mansion on which a legal caveat has been placed over unpaid land tax.

• Vailo founder’s tax debt row over luxury home

A millionaire South Australian entrepreneur embroiled in a state tax debt is being investigated for a potential director ban over a failed medicinal cannabis venture.

The state government has slapped a legal “caveat” restriction on a luxury $4.6m Glenelg South property, and a $345,000 Holdfast Bay boat marina berth that Vailo founder Aaron James Hickmann owns.

Mr Hickmann, 35, who quit SA this year for Queensland after he founded Valo more than a decade ago in Adelaide, has said he will repay the undisclosed unpaid land tax amount once the Glenelg South private sale settles.

But he faces potentially losing control of his high-profile brand over a failed medicinal cannabis venture, BBS Pharmaceuticals.

Mr Hickmann, who sold another mansion on Whistler Ave in exclusive Unley Park earlier this year for a more than $1.2m profit in just over two years of ownership, has denied wrongdoing, rejected claims any of his businesses are at risk or that he faced losing control of Vailo.

Aaron Hickmann is facing a possible ban from being a company director. Picture: Mark Brake

BBS, which was also the subject of District Court civil legal action, was licensed to produce medicinal cannabis products from its Murraylands growing facility near Tailem Bend, 100km south-east of Adelaide.

Mr Hickmann, who sponsors several major sport teams and events including the Adelaide 500 Supercars race, quit as a BBS director after just seven months, records show.

He was majority shareholder when in March 2022 he promised to inject almost $85m for construction, technology and manufacturing infrastructure.

A corporate investigation, from its administrators mid-last year, found the white knight’s vows to save the project never eventuated and the business plunged into administration in January last year – three months after he resigned as a director.

In a statement, Hall Chadwick administrator David Trim said the BBS issue was “not settled”.

Hickmann has relocated to Queensland after setting up and running his Vailo business in SA for 10 years. Picture: Ben Clark

He also revealed liquidators were talking with the corporate watchdog, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, about what action could be taken against the four BBS directors.

“Liquidators are continuing to pursue claims in the liquidation and are still liaising with ASIC in relation to director banning,” he said.

Mr Hickmann’s lawyer Greg Griffin said on Thursday: “Ongoing threats made against Mr Hickmann by the liquidators are simply just that, hollow threats and should be treated as such.”

After creditors agreed to wind up BBS, Mr Hickmann faces the possibility of being banned from managing a company for up to five years, as he has been a director of at least two entities placed into liquidation in the past seven years.

ASIC records show Mr Hickmann resigned as a director of Virtuous Research Pty Ltd, in August 2020, weeks before the company was wound up in December that year.

ASIC has the power to disqualify a person from managing a corporation in those circumstances, but must first give that person an opportunity to demonstrate why they should not be disqualified.

ASIC must also be satisfied that the disqualification is justified.

A ban would force him to step down as director of his advanced lighting manufacturing business.

The Adelaide 500, of which his brand is naming rights sponsor, has also stood by its “strong relationship” with the businessman but race officials would not say if there were any negotiations on extending the contract another two years.

In a statement issued through an Adelaide PR firm, his spokeswoman said her client, like many others, was a creditor and given the “short time” he was a director of BBS, allegations against him were baseless.

She said he quit in October 2022 over “his concerns as to the integrity of the books” and in accordance with his director duties not to be party to an insolvent entity.

“There is no prospect of the Administrators maintaining any insolvent trading claim against him and if instituted, any such claim would be vigorously defended,” she said.

“Mr Hickmann’s role as a director of VAILO, nor (its) operations, are in no way affected by the liquidation of BBS and the ongoing media strategy engaged by the liquidators.”

There is no criminal investigation and no charges have been laid. None of the other directors have commented.

An ASIC spokeswoman declined to comment on specific cases but outlined rules in which liquidators can pursue action.

She said action was taken on evidence and the wider public, and regulatory, benefit.