Billion-dollar Kiwi nutritional supplements company CEO quits amid criminal charges

The New Zealand founder of the world’s leading nutritional supplement company has resigned amid a podcast investigation into his criminal past and unpaid fines and reparations from his now-defunct firms.

Former Auckland police officer “Chris Kiwi” Ashenden won business acclaim in the United States for turning his company AG1 into a US$1.2 billion unicorn based on the green powder of the same name.

He is considered a global leader in social influencer marketing, having built a huge following thanks to paid endorsements from stars such as Joe Rogan, Gwyneth Paltrow and Sir Lewis Hamilton.

Ashenden’s failure to disclose his criminal past became part of a wide-ranging podcast investigation into the lack of science and regulation in the dietary supplement industry, as well as the outsized role of influencers such as Rogan and scientist Dr Andrew Huberman, who sources say are paid millions of dollars to promote AG1.

Ashenden’s resignation as chief executive comes the day after Newsroom.co.nz asked the company about its earnings problems and allegedly misleading claims about a product made in New Zealand.

He was also asked about the effectiveness and impact of AG1 on health, his academic performance and his criminal record.

Fines and reparations imposed on the globe-trotting executive’s companies were waived when the firms went into liquidation, but for those New Zealanders who lost their homes, that doesn’t make non-payment the norm.

The company declined to answer questions about whether Ashenden’s departure was related to media attention, saying only that the transition had been in the works for some time and noting that Ashenden remained on the board of directors of the firm, which is registered in the United States and Cayman Islands.

More than 10 years ago, the Commerce Commission brought two successful criminal cases against Ashenden’s companies, and ultimately against him personally, for deals in which he allegedly sold houses to people under rent-to-own schemes but failed to transfer ownership.

In 2011, Auckland District Court Judge Lindsay Moore ruled: “People were drawn into obligations that were a recipe for disaster in which they lost everything they had invested in the property they were seeking to acquire – in fact they were given the understanding they had gained “

“I deeply apologize to everyone who was harmed by my decisions. I believe in admitting my mistakes and hope others can learn from my experiences as much as I have.”

Chris Ashenden, founder of AG1

He added: “There are strong elements of cynicism and calculated exploitation of people in financial difficulties in this insult.”

Ashenden declined to be interviewed this year about his successes and failures in business and how he has rebounded personally and professionally in New Zealand and the United States.

But he was eventually forced to admit to a criminal offense he had previously denied.

Contacted from the news department Powder keg podcast on the street in the Mexican resort town of Playa del Carmen, outside the Grand Hyatt Hotel, where he was meeting with senior AG1 executives, Ashenden expressed surprise. “What are you doing here?”

He avoided questions about his criminal history, unpaid fines and reparations, and the effectiveness and health effects of his green powder supplement. “We said we don’t want to talk to you, sir.”

After seven minutes of interrogation in Mexico, the company offered to answer questions via email.

“Like most entrepreneurs, I have had both successes and failures in my career,” Ashenden acknowledged in an emailed statement.

“I made mistakes and regretful decisions in my early business ventures and faced legal and financial consequences. I deeply apologize to everyone who was harmed as a result of my decisions. I believe in owning my mistakes and hope others can learn from my experiences as much as I have.”

Earlier this year, in a public Substack post, a meeting with more than 300 of the company’s employees, and in a letter from his lawyer, he admitted to his business failures. However, he denied that he had been convicted of a crime or that a warrant had been issued for his arrest.

In fact, the podcast’s investigations reveal that he was convicted in the Auckland District Court of 43 criminal breaches of the Fair Trading Act, and when he initially failed to pay fines and reparations, the court issued an arrest warrant.

“I thought, I’m going to get to the bottom of this and some bank must have this information, this money is going somewhere.”

Dee Chisholm, informant

In Playa del Carmen he refused to answer these questions, and to this day Ashenden says only: “I could not guarantee the complete accuracy of the dates and specific details I provided to my lawyer and team. I have since corrected what I originally shared.”

He eventually paid the fines and reparations ordered against him personally in 2014 to have the warrant overturned and allow him to return to New Zealand without arrest.

But he has yet to pay $182,000 in fines and reparations that Auckland and Invercargill district courts ordered against his individual companies.

People who mistakenly believed they bought houses from his companies spoke out in an interview with the newspaper Powder keg podcast.

Dee Chisholm, a life coach who now lives in the remote southern village of Nightcaps, was the first to report one of the property scams in Ashenden.

She came to the bank to ask to see her mortgage payment report. “They came back to me at the bank and said, well, you don’t exist. You don’t have a mortgage here. And I said: yes, I believe. No, they said, you don’t exist.

“I thought, I’m going to get to the bottom of this and some bank must have this information, this money is going somewhere.”

The courts ordered Ashenden’s company, CMA Property Investments, to pay her $20,200 in compensation, but this never happened. Ashenden wound up the company.

“Just tell the truth and admit it. Instead of always hoping that it will all go away and avoiding it. And as every year goes by, the people you took the money from are probably still struggling.”

Michelle Young, Home Buyer

One of the families forced to sell their Invercargill home was Michelle Young, her husband and three children.

When the couple first bought a home with a low deposit in 2003, it seemed like a godsend to get them on the property ladder.

“I had nothing,” Michelle said in a podcast interview. “I just had two bags of clothes and three kids, three teenage kids. I just had to start from the bottom again, you know?

“I was very naive, now, looking back, I think: “For God’s sake, girl. But you know, you trust people.

Thinking the property was theirs, the couple painted it inside and out, fenced it in, installed new kitchen countertops and built a large deck out back.

But when the relationship hit rock bottom and they decided to sell the house, they discovered they never had ownership. They hired a lawyer and were eventually able to get some of their money back, but not even some of what they invested in it.

“I was embarrassed,” Young said. “I thought, God, I really got sucked into it.”

None of these people received the thousands of dollars in reparations that the courts ordered Ashenden’s companies Meguro Ltd, Home Finance Company Ltd and CMA Property Investments Ltd to pay them.

“Just tell the truth and admit it,” Young pleaded. “Instead of always hoping that everything will go away and avoiding it. And as every year goes by, the people you took the money from are probably still struggling.”

“We can forgive, but we never forget.”

Anita Mika, Auckland

Anita Mika, a bus driver from south Auckland, put down a $2000 deposit on a three-bedroom clapboard house in Otara and agreed to pay $370 a week for 30 years to pay off the $180,000 purchase price. That’s an effective interest rate of 10.3 percent—much more than she would pay for rent or a bank mortgage.

Many families were evicted or forced to leave homes they considered theirs. Mika, like some of the other victims, accumulated enough equity that she was eventually able to refinance and buy her home for extra money.

But, as the court later found, Mika had to “exempt himself from extremely onerous aspects of the transaction.” This includes $10,000 in early exit fees from the Ashenden property scheme.

Ultimately, in 2014, Ashenden paid Mika $5,000, which he was personally ordered to pay. He never paid her the $5,000 reparations ordered against his sole proprietorship, Meguro Ltd.

Miki Asenati’s sister Aki also joined the scheme, but she died in 2011 before Ashenden paid any reparations. “We can forgive, but we never forget,” Mika said.

In podcast interviews, Chisholm, Young, Micah and other victims called on Ashenden to repay the $182,000 in outstanding fines and reparations he had already remitted – and asked him to explain his actions to them.

Despite fresh regulatory scrutiny of AG1’s claims, Ashenden insisted the business was different from his previous failed business ventures in New Zealand and Australia.

“Over the past 14 years, I have been proud to work with accomplished leaders who bring diverse skills and depth of experience to our team,” he said.

“They helped grow it from a start-up to a global business that serves millions of customers around the world. That’s why AG1 is even better today than when we started.”

Until this year, the AG1 was widely advertised as being made in New Zealand. It is not actually sold here, but earlier this year the company registered a subsidiary, AG1, with Ashenden’s father, Phillip, who lives in Picton, as a director.

Kat Cole, the company’s former president and chief operating officer, was named CEO in July. She said Bloomberg AG1’s revenue this fiscal year is expected to exceed US$600 million and be profitable.

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Narrated, directed and written by Jonathan Milne with Mike Wesley-Smith. Audio editing by Dave Filoiali and Megan Cumberbatch; The video is edited by Trenton Doyle. Mark Jennings is executive producer.

This project received funding from the Brian Gaynor Business Journalism Initiative. Newsroom is indebted for this support of investigative journalism.