The Australian billionaire has become a co-owner of MinRes Air (Perth International), a fly-in-fly-out start-up that shuttles workers between capital cities and destinations owned by mining giant Mineral Resources. The company’s latest annual report reveals that Mineral Resources has a 50% stake in the four MinRes Air entities, with the remaining 50% ultimately held by a newly incorporated company called AvWest FIFO Pty Ltd. As first reported by the Australian Financial Review (AFR), the entity is controlled by Tim Roberts, whose father founded construction company Multiplex, which was later sold to Brookfield Asset Management.

The full-year 2024 financial results released on 29 August show that Mineral Resources holds a half-interest in MinRes Air Aircraft Pty Ltd, MinRes Air Facilities Pty Ltd, MinRes Air Flight Operations Pty Ltd and MinRes Air Holdings Pty Ltd.

Australian corporate records show that the first three are wholly owned by MinRes Air Holdings Pty Ltd. Fifty of the 100 shares issued by that company are held by MinResources Mining Services Pty Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Mineral Resources. The remaining 50 shares are held by AvWest, and Roberts owns all of the shares issued by that company.

The latest AFR Rich List, published in May 2024, estimates Roberts’ wealth at A$1.87 billion ($1.25 billion). He benefited from the sale of his family’s 26% stake in Multiplex in 2007 to Brookfield, but has since expanded it by building the successful AvWest aviation services business in Perth. However, AvWest FIFO Pty Ltd is not part of AvWest’s corporate structure; instead, it is wholly owned by Roberts.

Roberts is also a former director of Mineral Resources and a friend of that company’s founder and CEO, Chris Ellison. Mineral Resources has extensive operations in lithium, iron ore, energy and mining services across Western Australia. His CEO is one of two directors across the four MinRes Air entities, the other being Mark Wilson, Mineral Resources’ CFO and company secretary.

Ellison is promoting his new in-house airline as a cost-effective alternative to relying on commercial fly-in-fly-out operators. Until now, MinRes Air has been operating an A319-100 leased from Skytraders (SND, Sydney Kingsford Smith). It also recently leased an A320-200 from Zephyrus Aviation Capital. That aircraft is now on the Australian register as VH-8FE (msn 5129) and has been ferried to Perth. MinRes Air still needs to obtain its own air operator certificate, but expects to do so in 2025.

Ellison told analysts last week that the cost of adjusting to commercial operators and tinkering with changes at his mines was costing the company tens of millions of dollars a year. “What can we do about it? The answer is we’ll bring it in-house,” he said. “We’re operating under a licence from a Melbourne-based company until we get our own, which we should have in the middle of next year. But we’ve started driving from the east coast, taking people out of Brisbane International. Instead of a day and a half each way to get people from the east coast back (to the mines), it’s now five and a half hours directly to our mines.”

“So (now) we’re in Wodgin and directly into Ken’s Bore. We’ll be in Kambalda soon and then hopefully within the next four weeks the airline will be fully operational and we’ll be flying all our flights FIFO out of Perth. That’s tens of millions of dollars in savings and the cost of that – in the first year it’s more or less cost neutral compared to what we were going to spend on the airline.”