On the 19th of February 2002, Minardi announced that they signed a new sponsor for the 2002 season. The Australian HealthyCo company from Ashley Jude Perry step aboard the Minardi team. Perry proudly announced their involvement with Minardi. Paul Stoddart came from Australia as well was one of their drivers, Mark Webber who else, which made it more than natural to sign a deal with the Minardi team. Little did they know what a shady sponsor agreement this eventually would be!
The story is only focused on the Dutch part of the HealthyCo saga. I’m aware there is a bigger one though it would be a pretty long read, which is not good to read as it will be boring and far from logical to publish on a Formula One website like UnracedF1 that loves give the background story on a readable way. As well, I was more to explore, though I placed a request to the authorities to publish the documents. So sadly, the story is shorter.
Lets go back to the 19th of February. Stoddart and Perry were in contact back in 2001 to see if there was any interest to sponsor the team. Why did they choose for Minardi? There for I have to give a little summary of the company. HealthyCo was founded in 1989 by Melbourne businessman Ashley Jude Perry. As the name says, the company produced and sold imaginative ranges of healthy snacks based on natural products sourced in Australia. As the company grew massively in Australia and New Zealand they were to expand their markets worldwide. No better way to do that via the Formula One.
To accomplish the expected grow the company joined forces with Walrus Investments and Consulting LLC in 2000. I found it difficult to find any information regarding the investment company. This resulted in several sales offices around the world; New York, London, Singapore and The Hague. Where it becomes interesting is the fact that the distribution centre for the European market would be located in Rotterdam. Eventually the company was registered in London as HealthyCo Food & Beverage Limited.
Technically the deal with HealthyCo and Minardi could be future proof. As the company was active in the natural foods sector. This was back in 2002 mostly unexplored and gave them plenty of room to expand their business as well their position in the sector. Given the fact that their outlook at that point was pretty good, there was no need not to sign the deal.
However, things seemed to go the wrong way after they became a sponsor for the Minardi F1 Team. The company was sold as far as I could uncover just after the deal was signed. The fact I am unable to uncover more information regarding the investment vehicle that was to make HealthyCo big is a red flag to me.
In my own archive, I found a couple of documents that proven the shady construction that was created after the incorporation date of the 19th of October 2000 in the UK. This is linked with the Walrus Investments and Consulting LLC. As well the link to a Dutch businessman that is well known for his quackery in the healthcare. The story goes that people were asked to invest money in HealthyCo, assumable when Ashley Jude Perry left office, so they could expand their business. In return, people would get stocks in the company or similar was promised. However, no one ever saw it’s money back. Neither saw Minardi any penny. This would happen in 2003 with Stayer as well.
Sadly, the story goes even so far that lawsuits have happened to give the investors their right. However, since these law suits there had no single penny paid back to the investors. I’m afraid they will never see their money back.
The companies’ dissolution date is the 28th of December 2004 according to the papers. Today there is a HealthyCo company in existence with similar products. However, this company is situated in Malmo Sweden and only a few years old. What happened with Perry? He registered “The NutFree Health Food Company Pty Ltd” a few years ago. Though it was dissolute in December 2016.