Clive Palmer’s top henchman Domenic Martino has runs on the board

As Clive Palmer’s business interests begin to collapse around him, a trusted lieutenant is getting into the laxatives ­business.

As Clive Palmer’s business interests begin to collapse around him, one of his most trusted lieutenants is getting into the laxatives ­business.

Company director Domenic Martino will soon join the board of Food Revolution Group, which will soon join the ASX through a reverse takeover of dormant resources shell Crest Minerals.

Mr Martino, who developed a reputation for exorbitant pay packets while running a slew of ventures in the early 2000s, is chairman of Mr Palmer’s barely solvent Australasian Resources and has been a director of several of Mr Palmer’s private companies.

He is set to emerge as a major shareholder in Food Revolution Group, which produces laxatives and fruit juices from a facility at Mill Park on Melbourne’s northern outskirts. The company is in the process of raising up to $12 million from investors and may complete its listing this month.

Once the deal goes through, Food Revolution Group will be worth about $30 million, with Mr Martino holding a 16 per cent stake worth just under $5m.

Mr Martino holds or has held senior positions on the boards of some of Mr Palmer’s most important companies, including Mineralogy, Gladstone Pacific Nickel and Australasian.

He has never been too far from controversy, having been criticised over his salaries and his role at the collapsed dotcom player New Tel in the early 2000s.

Mr Martino rose to prominence as a high-profile chief executive of Deloitte, before being forced to resign in 2003 over his previous role as a director of the failed New Tel amid claims the telco had traded while insolvent.

Along the way he was involved in the short-lived online lingerie company NoRegrets and had a stint as executive chairman of coal-seam gas company Sydney Gas. His pay at Sydney Gas in 2004 was $1.5m, which at the time was more than Don Argus was earning for chairing BHP Billiton.

In 2008, Mr Martino was the highest paid director in Western Australia after gaining a share and options package for his role in securing iron ore tenements for Australasian from another Palmer company.

His package at the loss-making Australasian that year of $5.77m placed him ahead of Richard Goyder at Wesfarmers and Don Voelte at Woodside Petroleum.

Documents lodged with the ASX show the new juice and laxative company recorded losses before tax of $9.7m last year and $3.7m this year, although after one-off expenses are removed the business generated “future maintainable EBITDA” of $2.3m this year. The site at Mill Park is capable of extracting 80,000 tonnes a year of juice but is running at a quarter of that. The company, which sells dietary fibre supplements under the HiFi brand and its juice under the Juice Lab label, hopes to grow its presence internationally, particularly in China

Of the $12m being raised, more than half will go towards refinancing debt; another $2m will go into marketing.

According to the documents, Lang Technologies — which ASIC records show is half-owned by Mr Martino — will hold up to 17 per cent of Food Revolution Group and his private company Santino will own up to 7.2 per cent.

The current shareholders in Crest will see their existing holdings diluted to 12.2 million of the 294 million shares on issue.