Australian Federal Police raids SA offices of Adelaide 500 sponsor Vailo owned by Aaron Hickmann
With one week to go before a major sporting event his company is a chief sponsor of, the offices of an SA millionaire entrepreneur have been raided by agents.
Andrew Hough, Talara McHugh and George Yankovich
2 min read
November 6, 2024
The offices of a millionaire South Australian entrepreneur have been raided by agents from the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Taxation Office.
Lighting company Vailo, whose founder and chief executive Aaron Hickmann is embroiled in an ongoing dispute with taxation authorities, had its SA and Queensland offices searched on Wednesday afternoon.
The raids come a week before the Vailo Adelaide 500 supercars race, for which the company is a chief sponsor.
It is unclear why the offices were raided, or if any items were seized, and Mr Hickmann, a father of two, did not respond to a request for comment.
In a statement on Wednesday night, his Adelaide-based lawyer Greg Griffin said: “There is a matter with the ATO, with an objection. It is not related to Vailo. Aaron Hickmann has been compliant.”
He declined to comment further or provide any additional details.
The Advertiser revealed in June that Mr Hickmann was being investigated for a potential company director ban over his role in a failed medicinal cannabis venture.
In June, the state government slapped a legal caveat restriction on two of Mr Hickmann’s properties, including a luxury $4.6m home at Glenelg South and a $345,000 Holdfast Bay boat marina berth.
Mr Hickmann, 35, who left SA this year and purchased a $12m mansion in Queensland, said he will repay the undisclosed unpaid land tax amount once the sale of the Glenelg South property was settled.
However, he faces potentially losing control of his high-profile brand, which he founded a decade ago, over the collapse of BBS Pharmaceuticals, a medicinal cannabis company on which he was a majority shareholder. He denies Vailo is at risk.
BBS, which was also the subject of District Court civil legal action, was licensed to produce legal cannabis products from its Murraylands growing facility near Tailem Bend, 100km south-east of Adelaide.
In March 2022, he promised to inject almost $85m for construction, technology and manufacturing infrastructure.
But a corporate investigation carried out mid-last year found Mr Hickmann’s vows to save the project never eventuated and the business plunged into administration in January last year – three months after he resigned as a director.
Mr Hickmann, who sponsors several major sport teams and events including the Adelaide 500 Supercars race, quit as a BBS director after just seven months according to records.
Mr Hickmann has previously denied wrongdoing, rejected claims any of his businesses are at risk or that he faced losing control of Vailo.
He sold another mansion on Whistler Ave in the exclusive Unley Park earlier this year for more than $1.2m in profit, having owned it for just over two years.
