Mineral Resources co-founder Peter Wade breaks silence to reveal regret over scandals

Mineral Resources' founding chairman admits ‘detrimental’ actions damaged the company while defending embattled managing director Chris Ellison's leadership.

Peter Wade in Bibra Lake in Perth in 2010, when he was Mineral Resources managing director.

Inaugural Mineral Resources managing director and long-time chairman Peter Wade says he ­regrets his involvement alongside Chris Ellison in scandals that hurt the company and spawned a series of investigations.

Breaking his silence in an interview with The Australian, Mr Wade conceded that some of their actions were detrimental to the company and said Mr Ellison had emerged scarred but “wiser than he was in the past”.

Mr Wade endorsed his long-time friend and colleague staying on at the helm of MinRes for an extended period, and the new-look board’s efforts to strengthen governance so the company could grow without being weighed down by issues of “impropriety”.

“Chris has shown a great deal of strength and fortitude over the last two years with all the issues that have been thrown at him, and I think he’s taken it on board,” Mr Wade said.

“He understands some of those matters needed resolution. They have been and I think he’s very ­focused now on making sure that his legacy in the business is untarnished and that it will continue to grow and prosper while he’s there.”

Mr Wade declined to comment on whether he had been interviewed by the Australian Taxation Office or the Australian Securities & Investments Commission as part of investigations into MinRes, Mr Ellison and former executives.

Chris Ellison is no maverick, says Peter Wade.

Mr Wade was managing director of the three crushing and ­mining service companies that provided the foundation of MinRes. He led the companies through a period of rapid growth and continued as managing director after MinRes listed on the ASX in 2006, working fly-in, fly-out to WA from his home in Sydney.

Mr Wade was appointed executive chairman in 2008 and then became non-executive chairman from 2012 until March 2022.

The MinRes board led by Mal Bundey announced last week that it had scrapped plans for Mr Ellison to depart as managing director and chief executive by April next year. The now­abandoned exit plan had been ­unveiled last November in the ­fallout from revelations about Mr Ellison’s involvement in a tax-evasion scheme, related party dealings and inappropriate use of company resources.

Mr Wade welcomed the new board’s emphasis on improved governance and oversight, and the decision to stick with Mr Ellison as part of an extended and orderly leadership transition expected to take at least all of 2026.

“I think they’ve focused on the right outcomes, which is ­basically making sure that the ­operation is successful, that the company not only survives, but it grows and prospers (and) it does in a manner in which everyone can be proud of the performance and without issues of any impropriety being raised,” Mr Wade said.

The bulk of the misdeeds ­admitted by Mr Ellison occurred when Mr Wade was either ­managing director, executive chairman or non-executive ­chairman, a period that stretched 23 years until his retirement in March 2022.

“You have got to have regrets about things that are done which create distress to the company, the family and in breaching appropriate guidelines,” Mr Wade said, in commenting on the ­controversy that engulfed MinRes for the first time.

“There’s no doubt that I’ve been very proud and supportive of what’s happening in the company generally, but these are the actions that have been taken by myself and others have been to the company and our personal detriment.

“Certain things have been done, which have been indicated, which are not in accordance with what I consider should be good practice.”

Mr Wade attributed some shortcomings to rapid growth.

Mr Wade said some of the governance shortcomings were linked to the rapid growth of ­MinRes from a private company that had about 250 employees when it listed in 2006 to an ASX-listed mining services powerhouse with 7000 employees.

“One of the women who used to work with us, came to me in tears one day and she said: ‘Peter, I’ve realised that actually I can buy our house’,” he said.

“She had taken some shares when we first listed at 90c and 10 years later could buy a house for the first time.

“What you are seeing is a lot of good stories that the press doesn’t see, but people inside the company see.”

Mr Ellison has admitted his ­involvement in a tax-evasion scheme that extended into the early years of MinRes’s life on the ASX, and that he had reached a settlement with the tax office. It has also been alleged that Mr Wade and other inaugural executives were involved, but they have made no public admissions about the matter and no findings have been made.

Mr Wade rejected suggestions that Mr Ellison, now aged 68, had gone or could be considered a maverick business leader. He also said MinRes might have been able to deliver many of its positive achievements over the past 12 months with or without Mr Ellison at the helm.

“I don’t think he’s a maverick in any way, shape or form,” Mr Wade said. “I think Chris is a very competent, capable person who will have the strength of the board and the team around him right now to make sure that business succeeds. He wants to be in a position where he can leave it (MinRes) in a much better position than it is today even when he steps back from the role.”

A resurgent Mr Ellison now has no departure date hanging over his head at the company he founded and where he remains the biggest shareholder with an 11.5 per cent stake. He entered last Thursday’s annual general meeting attended by scores of his supporters through the front door whereas last year it was via an underground carpark.

Speaking at the meeting, he highlighted the ramp-up of the Onslow Iron project to nameplate capacity and its iron ore cash flow potential, the selldown of lithium assets to POSCO, the sale of oil and gas asset to Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting and debt refinancing as major wins over the past 12 months.

He also spoke bullishly about the future including expanding iron ore production, a major oil and gas drilling program in partnership with Mrs Rinehart and the levers MinRes could pull to boost lithium production if the price continued to improve.

Mr Ellison also claimed vindication on MinRes Air, a venture into operating its own airline that critics consider a dubious pet project.

Mr Wade said it was debatable whether those “wins” could have been achieved if Mr Ellison had fallen on his sword at the height of the outrage over MinRes governance failures just over a year ago.

“It’s not a one-man band,” Mr Wade said. “The team there is very strong. Perhaps, he’s been a talisman … I don’t think that you could say that it wouldn’t have been the same if he wasn’t there. But ­certainly, the outcomes are ­representative of the way Chris thinks and the way the team operates with him.”

Mr Wade singled out Mike Grey and Darren Hardy as two of the star performers in the MinRes leadership team.

Mr Grey, the chief executive of mining services, has been behind the ramp-up of Onslow Iron and runs the iron-ore crushing business underpinned by blue-chip clients such as Rio Tinto and BHP.

Mr Hardy is now chief executive energy but outside MinRes he managed construction at the Telfer gold/copper mine, the Boddington gold mine and Hancock’s Roy Hill iron ore mine. He was project director at Onslow Iron.

Mr Wade, described by Mr Ellison as a close friend, said the pair remained in regular contact.

“The last time I spoke to him, he was very upbeat about what had been happening with the business, very upbeat about some of the actions that were being undertaken, particularly with POSCO and what that meant for the lithium operations,” Mr Wade said.

“The last couple of years have obviously impacted him. I think he’s a wiser man right now than he might have been in the past.”

Mr Ellison has talked up Onslow Iron and iron ore broadly as becoming the backbone of MinRes over the next couple of decades, but Mr Wade sees tougher times ahead in the industry in WA as Rio and its Chinese partners boost higher-grade production from the Simandou project in the African nation of Guinea.

Mr Wade said having giant Chinese steelmaker Baowu as a partner in both Onslow Iron and Simandou was a huge advantage for MinRes because of the potential to blend lower-grade ore exported from WA.

The retired executive who was part of signing up Rio and BHP as clients in the early days of MinRes rejected suggestion MinRes could face a backlash in crushing and mining services as it became a more substantial rival in iron ore with Mr Ellison talking up potential to export 55 million tonnes a year from Onslow Iron.

“BHP and Rio are two great companies. They really are, and they’re great because they get the outcomes that they want by using whatever resources are available to them, and one of those is MinRes,” he said.

Originally published as Mineral Resources co-founder Peter Wade breaks silence to reveal regret over scandals