Jan Cameron fined $8000 over Bellamy’s holding but avoids jail

Tasmanian businesswoman and multimillionaire Jan Cameron has been fined $8000 in the Hobart magistrates court and banned from managing companies for five years.

Jan Cameron, right, outside the Hobart Magistrates Court. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones

Tasmanian businesswoman and multimillionaire Jan Cameron has been fined $8000 in the Hobart magistrates court and banned from managing companies for five years.

It comes after she was found guilty in December of one count of failing to lodge a substantial holder notice over her interests in baby formula giant Bellamy’s, and one count of making a false and or misleading statement to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.

Deputy chief magistrate Michael Daly convicted the Kathmandu founder of the charges and handed her fines of $3000 and $5000.

The maximum penalty in August 2014 for failing to lodge a substantial holder notice was six months’ imprisonment or a $4250 penalty or both.

Making a false or misleading statement in a document lodged with ASIC attracted a maximum penalty of 12 months jail and or a $10,800 fine.

Ms Cameron became the largest shareholder of Bellamy’s in 2014, warehousing shares and transferring funds through the companies Bicheno Investments, LENGKAP, and the Black Prince Private Foundation.

She was then accused — and found guilty — of failing to tell the corporate watchdog about the true nature of her relationship with Black Prince and the details of her interest in the 14 million Bellamy’s shares in 2017, amounting to 14.74 per cent of the issued capital in Bellamy’s.

Bellamy’s listed on the ASX in 2014 following an initial public offering.

Under the Corporations Act, a person must lodge a substantial holder notice with the company and the ASX if they start to have a holding of shares in a listed company that results in 5 per cent or more of voting power.

Ms Cameron was first charged in 2019 and the claims against her were aired in court in 2021, prosecuted by the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions.

She denied the allegations and is appealing the guilty verdict in the Tasmanian Supreme Court.

Counsel for the prosecution during the hearings, Lincoln Crowley, said in 2021 Ms Cameron stepped down as director for Tasmania Pure Foods, later renamed Bellamy’s, “as a result of adverse reporting in the media”.

Ms Cameron established Bicheno Investments and Malaysian company LENGKAP “as a part of the defendant’s wish and purpose for ultimately holding the interest in the Bellamy’s shares”, Mr Crowley said.

ASIC has previously noted Magistrate Daly said in December Ms Cameron lodged her substantial holder notice knowing it “omitted to disclose her relevant interest in Black Prince’s shareholding in Bellamy’s, as a result of which the SHN was, to the defendant’s knowledge, misleading in material respect”.

As well, Magistrate Daly said the defendant knew if her SHN did not contain that information within it, her notice would be misleading and that it would obscure her true position from ASIC and the market.

“I find beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant intentionally omitted the information from the notice,” he said.

Ms Cameron was a director of Bellamy’s between May 2007 and May 2011, and between March 2013 and June 2014.