Investment promoter Shaun Fox shuts down three companies after being served ASIC ban

Shaun Fox, the promoter of a $30m mining project in Queensland, has shut down three companies including Foxi Capital after being hit with an eight-year ban by ASIC.

Shaun Fox, the promoter of a $30m silica mining proposal in Queensland, has placed three of his companies into voluntary administration after being banned from providing financial services for eight years.

On June 10 Mr Fox placed Foxi Capital, Foxi Capital AU and Foxi International Financial Services into voluntary administration.

This was a day after he was banned by the corporate regulator ASIC from “providing financial services and being involved in carrying on such a business for a period of eight years’’.

Mr Fox is a shareholder in Foxi Invest, which is not in administration. Its website says it raised $30.4m as at May 2023 to develop the Pleasure Point Mine at Helidon, 110km west of Brisbane.

The website for the mine indicates the project, which it says has a 40 million tonne silica resource, is not yet in production, but that preliminary site works started early last year.

Investors were being promised a return of “12 per cent net fixed interest” from the project.

Foxi Invest and Pleasure Point Mine Pty Ltd, which Mr Fox is also a director and shareholder of, are not in administration.

“In November 2020, Mr Fox set up RAIC Pty Ltd, now known as Foxi Capital AU, where he offered consumers investment opportunities, including units in the Pleasure Point Mine Unit Trust and Plazrok Investor Trust,’’ ASIC said in a statement. “Mr Fox also offered consumers the opportunity to invest in various property developments through the Retirement and Investment Centre and RAIC Capital.

“ASIC found Mr Fox contravened financial services laws by making false and misleading statements and engaging in misleading and deceptive conduct in relation to financial products.

“Mr Fox represented to several investors that they could roll over their investments in older property schemes into the Pleasure Point Mine Unit Trust, on similar terms to their existing investment.

“Investors that accepted the offer did not receive certificates or appear on the unitholder register.

“Additionally, Mr Fox represented that he had gifted investors equity through shares in Pleasure Point Mine Pty Ltd. Investors did not appear on the Pleasure Point Mine Pty Ltd shareholder register and did not receive share ­certificates.’’

ASIC found that Mr Fox was not a fit and proper person to engage in financial services and “was likely to contravene financial services laws and was not adequately trained”.

The regulator said it came to this conclusion after considering Mr Fox's lack of formal qualifications and industry experience, “misrepresentations” he had made to potential investors and his “track record of incomplete and unsuccessful investment offerings’’.

ASIC also said: “Between 2017 and 2018, Mr Fox offered several property investments including the Victoria Bundamba Investment Unit Trust, the Blackstone Victoria Group Unit Trust and the Riverview Development Loan Trust (also known as the Child Street Property Trust)’’.

“All of the investments expired without the investors receiving their return of capital.’’

Mr Fox has the right to appeal to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal for a review of ASIC’s decision.

Originally published as Investment promoter Shaun Fox shuts down three companies after being served ASIC ban