He oversaw the Newmarch House tragedy, “declined” to turn up to the subsequent government inquiry, and was in September revealed as being tied to an international tax scandal. Now Anglicare’s board says he’s “retiring” as CEO. Anthony Klan reports.
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Anglicare Sydney’s scandal-plagued CEO Grant Millard will leave the aged care giant, its chairman has said, nine months after it was revealed he previously ran international tax affairs for a global arm of multi-national tax cheat Coca-Cola.
In a statement, Anglicare chairman Greg Hammond said Millard would “retire” as CEO and the board would commence a “succession plan” to replace him, aged care trade publication The Weekly Source reported today.
Millard’s departure caps off a disastrous year for the Anglicare CEO, who has been embroiled in a string of major controversies.
The Klaxon last month: failure by Anglicare board to take action against CEO Millard “shocking”. Source: The Klaxon
As Anglicare CEO, Millard was responsible for the Newmarch House aged care facility, where where 71 staff and residents were infected, and 17 residents died, after Covid swept through the facility from April 11 last year.
In March Millard, a corporate lawyer and tax accountant, had to be summonsed – legally forced – to appear before a NSW parliamentary inquiry into the disaster, after earlier “declining” to do so.
The Klaxon revealed Millard’s tax haven past on September 4 last year.
A forensic report by the Centre for International Corporate Tax Accountability and Research (CICTAR) – titled “the Coca-Cola tax dodger”- revealed that before he joined Anglicare in 2011 Millard had “been at he helm of Coca-Cola’s aggressive tax dodging strategies”.
“For a significant time of his 13 years at Coca-Cola, Grant Millard was at the helm of Coca-Cola’s aggressive tax dodging strategies,” the report said.
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More in our Anglicare series:
Hire more “messengers”: Anglicare silent but PR overhaul
Millard’s Manor: Meet tax haven CEO’s tax haven HQ
Anglicare tax haven CEO: The Luxembourg Files
Newmarch House CEO tied to global tax scandal
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The report’s author, CICTAR’s Jason Ward, said Millard had been “Treasury and Tax Director” at the Athens-based Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling Company (HBC), which is the world’s third biggest Coca-Cola bottling company, with operations in 28 countries.
During that period Coca-Cola was “aggressively avoiding income tax payments”, depriving governments of billions of dollars that could otherwise be used to “fund health and social services”, the report found.
The Klaxon subsequently exclusively obtained a series of documents proving Millard, while running international tax affairs at Coca-Cola HBC, ran a string of “shell” companies in notorious tax haven of Luxembourg (among other tax havens), despite the bottling giant’s own accounts revealing it had no actual operations there.
Millard’s Manor: “Deep in the tiny, landlocked European tax haven of Luxembourg a three-storey house sits on a leafy suburban street. In the front driveway is a modest grey hatchback…” Read the full story here.
The scandals at Anglicare have spilled over to its high-profile board, which has been repeatedly heavily criticised for failing to replace Millard as soon as his tax haven past was exposed.
Each of Anglicare’s nine board members, including its chair Hammond – also a corporate lawyer – has repeatedly refused comment when contacted by The Klaxon over the past nine-plus months.
Alongside Hammond, Anglicare’s board members include former Leighton Contractors CFO Peter Hicks; Martyn Mitchell, formerly a PriceWaterHouseCoopers partner of 20 years; Michael Clancy, the current CEO of the Qantas employees super fund, Qantas Super; and Linda Kurti, a senior executive at consultancy giant Urbis.
After The Klaxon’s September 4 expose, Millard threatened The Klaxon, and this reporter personally, with serious legal action.
That included threatening an “injunction”, “costs”, and demanding an “urgent takedown” of the article.
The Klaxon refused. We do not consider the article to be defamatory as it reports the truth. It is also very much in the public interest.
Last month The Klaxon reported that neither Anglicare Sydney’s board or the Federal Government – Anglicare’s biggest funder – had taken any action whatsoever regarding the revelations of Millard’s tax haven past.
CICTAR’s Ward said that failure was “shocking”.
“It’s pretty shocking to me that he board of Anglicare haven’t responded to those allegations in anyway whatsoever other than issuing legal threats to the people who made them,” Ward told The Klaxon.
“Clearly the behaviour of the CEO isn’t seen as being problematic for the board of Anglicare which is troubling.”
Anglicare received over $233m from Australian taxpayers in the 2019 financial year.
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