Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers on Sunday ordered a Chinese investment fund to sell off shares of Northern Minerals, a Sydney-based rare earths mining company considered vital to Australian national interests.
“Australia operates a robust and non-discriminatory foreign investment framework, and will take further action if required to protect our national interest in relation to this matter,” the spokesman The Yuxiao Fund has been pushing very hard to gain control of Northern Minerals, which is developing heavy rare earths mining projects in Western Australia. The company’s Browns Range mines will supply a massive rare earths refinery under construction in Western Australia that has already received $665 million in funding pledges from the Australian government and could be given even more.
Curtis filed a complaint with Australia’s Foreign Investment Review Board , asking it to investigate Yuxiao for using associates and proxies to buy up stock and surreptitiously establish a heavy stake in Northern Minerals, even though Chalmers had expressly limited Yuxiao to owning no more than 9.98 percent.as executive chairman of Northern Minerals on May 27, becoming a “strategic advisor” instead. He evidently stepped down because Yuxiao used its current 9.