Kasey Sandstrom, a MinRes employee and Chris Ellison’s daughter, revealed as a Kali Metals shareholder

One of Chris Ellison’s children and her husband have been on Kali Metals’ share register, it can be revealed.

Mr Ellison, who is the boss of Mineral Resources, and his associates — most notably Jennifer Robinson — owned a big chunk of Kali’s stock when it debuted on the Australian Securities Exchange on January 8 last year.

The West Australian later in the month uncovered Mrs Robinson as Mr Ellison’s mother-in-law and that she, among other associates of Mr Ellison and his wife Tia, cashed out for a big profit while MinRes splashed out to acquire 14 per cent of Kali shortly after its ASX listing.

Mrs Robinson and the associates mentioned in that article were top 20 shareholders of Kali at the time of its debut on the bourse.

MinRes employees including chief financial officer Mark Wilson, lithium division chief Joshua Thurlow and director of international trade and strategy Yenna Ong were minor Kali shareholders.

Two other minor Kali shareholders that flew under the radar among the 3800-plus holders of its stock were MinRes partnerships manager Kasey Sandstrom and her wedding photographer husband Eerik Sandstrom.

Mrs Sandstrom is Mr Ellison’s daughter.

She held 1285 Kali shares and her husband 20,000 shares on January 29 last year, according to a Kali share registry obtained by The West.

It is unclear if Mrs and Mr Sandstrom held more shares at the time of Kali’s listing or if they have sold any of their shares since.

MinRes declined to comment.

The West is not accusing Mrs and Mr Sandstrom or any of the other Kali shareholders mentioned in this article of any wrongdoing.

Kali had an initial public offering price of 25 cents and then reached a peak of 89 cents as MinRes piled in.

The deterioration of the lithium market and The West lifting the lid on the mass January 2024 sell-off saw Kali’s share price tumble down a cliff.

It last closed at 7.6 cents. The stake MinRes acquired in a frenzy for $9.4 million is now worth less than $1.6m.