GFG's Bell Bay smelter went into administration after five years of missing accounts

Liberty Bell Bay, the owner of Australia’s only manganese alloy smelter, at Bell Bay in northern Tasmania, was placed into voluntary administration in March 2026 after years of financial struggles inside Sanjeev Gupta’s GFG Alliance. Ernst and Young was appointed administrator to stabilise operations, secure funding and run a sales process for “a critical piece of infrastructure”. The case followed an ASIC application to wind up and liquidate LBB over its failure to lodge financial statements for five years, which came before the New South Wales Supreme Court on 16 March.

The secured creditor, major lender White Oak Commercial Finance, made the decision to place LBB into administration. The smelter had been in limited operations since May 2025, when GFG blamed a loss of ore supply on a cyclone forcing force majeure. The Tasmanian government had extended a $20 million loan in August, of which $14.5 million bought a 23,000-tonne shipment of ore to restart operations — but the ore, delivered in October, was never used, and in January the government appointed receivers to protect it.

The administration was the latest unravelling of GFG's Australian operations since its financier Greensill Capital collapsed in 2021: the South Australian government forced its Whyalla steelworks into administration over an estimated $300 million in debts, and its Tahmoor Colliery entered liquidation with 238 job losses. Federal Industry Minister Tim Ayres said GFG had failed to provide "a clear future pathway for workers, the community and local businesses".

Five years of unfiled financial statements left regulators with wind-up as the default remedy and creditors blind to the company's true position.

GFG bought the smelter in 2020 and lost its supply-chain financing when Greensill collapsed in 2021, leaving the asset structurally underfunded.

The company accepted a $20 million government loan to buy restart ore, then left the 23,000-tonne shipment unused for months — burning public goodwill.

Force majeure, market deterioration and rising costs became the standing explanation while the underlying funding and compliance problems went unfixed.

Compliance is collateral: a company that stops filing accounts invites wind-up action, and every lender reads missing statements as distress.

Ernst and Young's Morgan Kelly said the immediate focus was stabilising operations and finding a new owner, working with state and federal governments and the 216-strong workforce, with existing management kept in place. The Australian Workers Union backed administration over liquidation as offering "potentially a future for the site", after what employees called a roller coaster since May 2025. GFG said it would cooperate with administrators; the ASIC wind-up case continued separately in the Supreme Court.