‘Not many want to see you do too well’: Ian Malouf’s blast for ASIC after insider trading inquiry ends
Australia’s ‘richest garbo’, Ian Malouf, enjoys the trappings of his wealth, but claims he has been unfairly targeted by several government authorities.
Ian Malouf has lashed out at the corporate regulator, saying its strategy of going after big business names in recent years has been a failure and accusing it of “arrogance”.
Malouf, a member of The List – Australia’s Richest 250 who has built a fortune of more than $700m in the waste industry, received a letter from the Australian Securities & Investments Commission late this week saying it would take no action against him after opening an investigation alleging insider trading last year.
In what was an unusual move for ASIC, the regulator confirmed in writing to Malouf that it had concluded there was “insufficient evidence to … establish there has been a breach of law” after the Dial-a-Dump founder and Bingo Industries director was raided last November.
ASIC had investigated Malouf over trading in shares in the Toronto-listed The Stars Group in 2019, before it announced a $US12bn merger with wagering giant Flutter Entertainment.
Malouf claims he was simply following the smart money into gambling company The Stars, which at the time counted Australian investors such as Sydney firm Caledonia as major shareholders.
In an interview with The Weekend Australian, Malouf accused ASIC of “going after tall poppies” and said he was told alarm bells had been raised because of the size of his share buying transactions in The Stars.
“They thought it was large. For me it was not large. It’s not even close to the largest transactions I have done,” he says. “There’s a great saying, ‘everyone likes to see you do well, but not many want to see you do too well’.
“I’m not ashamed of the way I have done things, in fact I’m very proud of it. But it puts a potential stain on me. It put doubt on how I had created my wealth.”
Malouf, known as “Australia’s richest garbo”, has spent more than $100m this year alone on Sydney properties, including a record $60m outlay on a penthouse apartment in the CBD with views to across the harbour.
He also took a package of shares and cash when Bingo, to which he had sold Dial-A-Dump in a $577m deal in 2018, was taken private with the founding Tartak family and Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets in a $2.3bn takeover completed in August.
Malouf enjoys the trappings of his wealth, including his 54m superyacht Mischief that can be rented out for $15,000 an hour via his Ahoy Club charter business.
But he says the ASIC investigation and other dealings he has had at various government levels still rankle.
In what Malouf claims were farcical scenes, federal police and ASIC officers had a warrant for the wrong address when they turned up at his door early one morning last November when he was home with his family in their then Sydney harbourside mansion.
“The address they had was my garden. So I said go search the pot plants. Knock yourselves out,” Malouf says.
“It ended in a silly argument but they were complete bullies, one bloke called me a ‘f..kwit’. It was just arrogance. Everyone has a job to do but they came in like I was a criminal and walked around the house like they owned it.
“I thought they were very demanding, very rude, but I was happy to deal with it. My family was there and I said to my girls to ‘come in and sit in on this, it will be a good education’. They [the officers] were not happy about that.”
Malouf would later appear in media reports about the raid, during which documents and electronic equipment such as phones and computers were seized. ASIC is now making arrangements to return the items.
“I hold myself, my hard work and my reputation in high regard, so to have that tarnished was both disheartening and disappointing,” Malouf says.
“I have worked very hard all my life and started Dial-A-Dump four months after leaving school with $700 in my pocket that I had saved by labouring. I built my name from nothing, and to this day credit my success to hard work, long hours and adapting to the changing markets.”
ASIC has a mixed record regarding some of its recent big court battles, including a legal loss to Westpac regarding the “shiraz and wagyu” responsible lending case and another with prominent media buyer Harold Mitchell over Tennis Australia broadcast rights dealings that saw Mitchell cleared of wrongdoing by the Federal Court and Mitchell describe it as a “humiliating defeat” for the corporate regulator. ASIC did not respond to a request for comment.
While Malouf is happy to have had the insider-trading investigation end, he has had other battles with government authorities going on. He had taken the NSW government to court over its compulsory acquisition of land he had used as a tip at inner-Sydney’s St Peters for the WestConnex Motorway. Malouf sought about $580m, but received $70m.
“They took the land off me for $320 per square metre. I sold land I had directly opposite for $4500 per square metre. On that ratio they gave me one-tenth of the value,” Malouf says.
“It’s very unjust. You have teams within government that just want to smash the shit out of you. ‘That’s enough for you, you’ll be right mate,’ one official said to me. It’s comments like that which show a sinister side or jealous side to this. That’s their chance to get even with us. You need people to have a go, you need pioneers.”
The NSW government has also banned energy to waste in the Sydney Basin after Malouf had proposed building a large plant at western Sydney’s Eastern Creek, much to his chagrin.
But he says his Ahoy Club yacht chartering business, run by his daughter Ellie, is poised for a big comeback as NSW emerges from lockdown.
Malouf has spent time on Mischief in Queensland at times this year and also took a trip to Tasmania, where he caught an 80kg tuna off Mischief’s tender. He is also undertaking a $30m refurbishment of the 73m Coral Ocean superyacht he paid a reported $US50m for in 2019 in Europe.
“It’s an amazing yacht and we’re getting it ready for next [European] season,” says Malouf.