Revenue surges for Australia’s second-biggest mint ABC Refinery but profit obscured by related party deals

Annual revenue generated by the main gold and silver mint on Australia’s east coast surged 98 per cent to more than $18 billion, but some accounting wizardry saw profit rise just 7 per cent.

A gold mining boom and the insatiable demand for bullion as a safe-haven asset drove a sharp increase in activity for Sydney-based ABC Refinery during the 2025 financial year.

ABC’s revenue soared from $9.3b to $18.3b, while net profit edged up from $21 million to $22.4m.

Net payments of “related party loans and financing facilities” rose 37 per cent to $22.9m.

ABC also had $124.2m of inventory on consignment with a related party — the first financial year this arrangement has been in place.

ABC is wholly owned by Pallion Group, which itself is half-owned by the wealthy Cochineas family.

Phillip Cochineas has led ABC for 13 years and his two brothers — Andrew and Paul — also hold executive positions at the refinery.

The profit ABC generated for the 2025 financial year equates to about 0.1 per cent of its revenue, but razor-thin profit margins are commonplace for precious metal refiners.

Perth Mint, Australia’s largest gold refiner, delivered a $15.7m profit before tax from revenue of $33b for the 2025 financial year.

The WA Government-owned enterprise’s profit followed a $15.5m loss in the financial year prior.

That loss was blamed mainly on a $34m program to rectify breaches of anti-money laundering laws uncovered in 2022, but Perth Mint has escaped a major financial penalty after Austrac formally concluded an ‘enforceable undertaking’ in July.

Perth Mint was also caught excessively diluting its gold bars with silver before selling them to China in September 2021, but the scandal only came to light publicly in 2023.

ABC has faced its own share of scandals.

Most notably, one of the company’s former subsidiaries has been in the cross-hairs of the Australian Taxation Office since 2014.

The ATO wants to claw back hundreds of millions of dollars of GST rebates that were previously claimed for precious metal refining.

ABC is Australia’s largest refiner of silver and has produced bullion since 1978.

The private firm opened its current flagship bullion sales store in Sydney in 2023.

All signs point to ABC’s revenue and profit growing during the current financial year.

Each day over the last few weeks, thousands of people have been queuing up for hours to get their hands on gold sold at ABC’s Sydney store.

ABC manager Jordan Eliseo reportedly said the store had to extend its trading hours and hire five extra staff to keep up with the unprecedented demand.