Frank Timiș

Romanian Australian businessman

Vasile Frank Timiș (born 1964) is a Romanian Australian businessman living in London, with interests in mining and oil extraction industries. The Sunday Times Rich List estimated his wealth at £162m (US$238m) as of 2008, making him the 497th richest person in Britain. The Romanian magazine Capital reckoned Timiș to be the 9th richest Romanian, estimating his wealth at $290m as of 2006. In 2012 he became the richest Romanian with a net worth of £1.34 billion (US$2.13 billion). A BBC News investigation alleged that Timiș paid £35.20 in tax in 2017 despite living a life of luxury, and included a statement from the Tax Justice Network suggesting that Timiș be investigated for tax fraud. In 2017, BP acquired Frank Timis's stake in a Senegal gas field for $250 million, with documents later revealing an additional $9–12 billion in royalties to be paid to Timis's company. Both parties deny wrongdoing, with Timis having an estimated net worth of $12 billion.

Born in Borșa, Maramureș County, he graduated from a vocational school for auto mechanics. He left Romania and settled as a refugee in Perth, Western Australia. Whilst in Australia he was convicted of possession of heroin with intent to supply and fined A$27,000.

Timis was arrested twice for possession of heroin in the Eighties and was deemed "unsuitable" to be a director of a company by the Toronto Stock Exchange for failing to disclose those convictions. Timiș started his own transport company in Australia, which owned only one truck driven by himself. However, it went bankrupt in 1986 with debts of 15,806 AUD. According to Jurnalul Național, Timiș failed to declare this fact in the CV he published when he listed the company Gabriel Resources on the Toronto Stock Exchange, as required by law. In 1992, he became the CEO of Morwest Holdings Pty Ltd, the first of his gold mining businesses. Timiș and two Australian miners dug for six months for gold in a region called Mosquito Creek, but the result was a failure. In the meantime, he founded another three companies: Riverdale Mining, Timis Corporation, and Carpathian Investments, together with Ioana Timiș and his sister, Ioana Majdik. However, these companies were liquidated by Timiș, and all creditors were paid in full. Timiș had access to various databanks of the Romanian research institutes of mineralogy and got data on the area. His company also hired relevant scientists and an ex officer of the Topographic Department of the Romanian Ministry of Defence who mapped the area. This hype drove Regal's share price up to a peak of 509p, with the company's market value reaching £500m, making it one of the highest valued companies of the Alternative Investment Market. Many private investors and respectable institutions (including Merrill Lynch, Commerzbank, Artemis and Schroders) invested more than £45m in the company. Days later, Timiș secretly agreed to sell the company's assets and then resigned as chief executive of the company. By mid 2005, it was clear that Regal's oil field contained oil but not in commercial amounts. The flow rates were around 30 barrels a day and "deemed to be non commercial". In February 2006, Regal lost its Ukraine gas production license in a trial but got it back through appeal one year later. In June 2005, an environmental group, Alburnus Maior, asked the Romanian Supreme Court, under the freedom of information laws, whether Timiș was under any investigations. The answer was that his name was linked with three dossiers investigated by the organised crime department. However, Timiș denied all the claims and no charges were ever filed. Later queries to the Romanian administration on this subject were given the answer that there are no investigations concerning Timiș. Due to the collapse in the share price of this company, the Alternative Investment Market decided in 2006 to toughen regulations for companies in the natural resources sector and to hire experts who would prevent future bubbles followed by price fluctuations.

In 2005, the Timiș Trust bought 30% of the shares of the Sierra Leone Diamond Corporation, via the Trust's Bermuda registered Timis Diamond Corporation Limited. SLDC holds mineral rights over a third of the area of Sierra Leone in the northern part of the country, including some important diamond fields and the Tonkolili & Marampa Iron Ore Projects. The company is also exploring for uranium at Lovetta, and for gold and base metals in the Sula Mountains, Gori Hills and Nimini Hills. On 16 August 2007 the AIM listed company was renamed African Minerals Limited (AMI. L) to reflect these other interests., On 15 March 2010 AMI announced an initial Mineral Resource estimate of over 10 billion tonnes of iron ore (independently valued) at an average grade of 29.9% Total Iron in the Numbara and Simbili targets at Tonkolili. Timiș, who is executive chairman of the company, increased his shareholding to 34% in June 2006 and to 34.6% (40,875,002 shares) in September 2006. as of 2009 the entire company was worth £45m (US$65m). In 2015, Frank Timis together with then CEO Alan Watling and CFO Matthew Hird took African Minerals into administration. The company has been forced to sell its 75% share to Shandong Iron and Steel Group for a grossly undervalued sum. Half year results for AMI were impressive, the Company posted a quarterly production of 4mt – an improvement of 81% on the prior 3 months. In January 2014 AMI hit its operating capacity for the first time, producing 5.3mt and exporting 4.6mt in the first quarter. Earnings for the company were US$203m in 2013 compared with a US$26.5m in 2012. Despite the best efforts of the team and management, the continued downturn in iron ore prices, slowing global growth and China's appetite and the Ebola crisis (which infected almost 15,000 and claimed 4,000 lives) left AMI exposed. The downturn in iron ore prices from US$128.12 in January 2014 decreased rapidly over coming months reaching US$68 in December 2014 and US$63 in February 2015. This combined with the Ebola crises created a perfect storm for the beleaguered mining company. Shandong refused to release remaining funds (US$100m) and their lawyers Linklater's recognised a perfect opportunity to take over buying 75% of AMI shares at a grossly undervalued price and through a process that was anything but transparent. The Board, management and Timis fought passionately to keep the company from going to administration, but given the perfect storm it was facing and like many other junior mining Companies then and since, there was no alternative but administration. Timis lost all of his $450m investment as did the institution investors, shareholders and bond holders. AMI was operating as Shan Steel under Chinese leadership until they recently left the tonkolili project with the loss of all jobs created by Frank Timis and AML. His Timis Corporation controversially bought the operations of London Mining, another iron ore miner in Sierra Leone, out of administration shortly before African Minerals went bust. African Petroleum Corporation is a company with various oil and gas operations in West Africa, listed on the National Stock Exchange of Australia (NSX: AOQ) and Oslo Bors (APCL).

Timiș is a non executive director at International Petroleum Limited, an Australian domiciled, NSX listed (NSX code: IOP), oil and gas exploration and production company.

Timiș is CEO of Pan African Minerals Limited, which has various operations in Africa, including exploration of a large manganese deposit at Tambao in Burkina Faso.

In 2000 Frank Timiș bought 15% of European Goldfields (EGU. L), a Yukon incorporated company listed in Toronto and on AIM that owns 95% of Hellas Gold S. A. 21% of that stake was acquired by EGU from Timiș himself in 2004 for $77.3m, paid a third in cash and two thirds in EGU shares, taking his stake to 18.9%. Hellas has three mining projects in Greece (Stratoni, Skouries and Olympias) and two companies in Romania: 100% of the shares of European Goldfields Deva (with projects at Voia and the Cainel perimeter) and 80% of the shares in Deva Gold, Certej Mine, Bolcana and Băița Crăciunești. He sold his entire stake in the company between January and April 2006.

A BBC News investigation accused Timiș of paying only £35.20 in income tax in 2017, despite living a life of luxury. The BBC alleged that payments received in 2017 totalling £670,000 from an offshore trust were described retrospectively as untaxable loans to avoid paying taxes on them. John Christiansen, Director and chair of the Board of the Tax Justice Network, told the BBC that Timiș appeared to be dodging tax: "It all points to this being a manoeuvre to cheat the tax man. And, if that is the case, because it's been done retrospectively, there seems to be prima facie evidence that this is tax fraud and it should be investigated." Timiș's lawyers told the BBC that he has fully complied with all of his tax obligations. Timiș has denied the accusations.

In 2010, he donated £100,000 to the British Christian Party for the general election.