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British billionaire Joe Lewis, who controls Australia’s biggest pastoral group, Australian Agricultural Company, has been indicted for insider trading by the Southern District of New York, according to US attorney in Manhattan Damian Williams.
The Bermuda-based Mr Lewis, who made his money in currency trading and owns football club Tottenham Hotspur, plus British pub chain Mitchells & Butlers, could not immediately be reached for comment.
In a video posted to former-Twitter site X, Mr Williams accused Mr Lewis of “brazen insider trading” including by sharing information that was traded on to his “romantic partners, his personal assistants, his private pilots and his friends.”
“Thanks to Lewis those bets were a sure thing,” said Mr Williams. “None of this was necessary. Joe Lewis is a wealthy man, but as we allege he used insider information to compensate his employees, or to shower gifts on his friends and lovers.
“That’s classic corporate corruption. It’s cheating and it’s against the law.”
How this case will impact AACo remains to be seen. The pastoral firm that he owns just over half of is almost 200-year-old and runs 382,000 head of cattle across 19 owned cattle stations, three leased stations, two feedlots and three farms in Queensland and the Northern Territory.
The move by Mr Lewis to increase his stake in AACo to just over 50 per cent last year is believed to have angered fellow billionaire, Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest, who also holds a stake in the listed agricultural company and had thought the foreigner would fail gain regulatory approval to take a majority stake in the company.
Mr Forrest has also been in the press for reasons he probably wouldn’t rather, after being forced to announce his separation from his wife of 31-years Nicola, and the publication of a board inquiry about whether he had a relationship with an employee of the iron ore giant.
The board of Fortescue Metals cleared Mr Forrest of any wrongdoing.
AACo is the nation’s oldest and largest beef producer and accounts for more than 1 per cent of Australia’s total land mass.
The company has been reaping the rewards of a boom in land values as billionaires battle for bigger pieces of the nation’s farmlands, and strong prices for beef to report a 35 per cent jump in operating profit for full year 2023 to $67.4m."
Senior Business Reporter: Tansy Harcourt
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AACo profit soars as people pay more for beef, farms
