Associated Press

ASHLAND, Ky. (AP) — The former CEO of a Kentucky aluminum company planning to build a plant in Appalachia misled potential investors and the company’s board and even tried to fool journalists visiting the construction site, according to a report.

The report, written by a law firm as a part of a legal fight between the company and former Braidy Industries CEO Craig Bouchard, said Braidy only had $11 million cash on hand in January and would run out of money by midyear. Bouchard also told investors the proposed mill in Ashland could be moved to Mexico, the report said.

A copy of the 49-page report was obtained by The Daily Independent in Ashland. It paints an unflattering picture of the business practices of Bouchard, who was ousted by Braidy’s board of directors on Jan. 28.

More:Braidy Industries CEO Craig Bouchard stepping down as head of company

Bouchard alleged in a lawsuit filed in February in Delaware that several defendants breached their obligations under a company voting agreement after refusing his efforts to remove four executives from Braidy’s board. The report the newspaper obtained was part of the filings in that lawsuit. The law firm Frost Brown Todd interviewed former employees, the board and reviewed 17,000 documents to complete the report.

“Each board member interviewed described the same pattern of conduct: Mr. Bouchard would provide an impressive list of purported interested investors. He would report that at least one of the investors would invest in Braidy imminently. That investment did not occur,” the report said.

Investors from Japan, Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia, Oman, South Korea and India were all mentioned as potential deals, but none materialized, the report said.

Kentucky taxpayers have a direct stake in Braidy’s plans to build the aluminum rolling mill near Ashland, Kentucky. During his term as governor, Republican Matt Bevin persuaded Kentucky lawmakers to approve a $15 million investment in the project.

At a January board meeting, the board raised concerns that Bouchard had approached 100 investors, but only Rusal, a Russian metal manufacturer, had actually agreed to invest, the report said. Besides the Rusal deal, there were no investments after early 2018.

Read this:As Ashland's historic AK Steel plant shuts down, all eyes turn to Braidy Industries

In addition to telling potential investors that the Ashland mill would be moved to Mexico, Bouchard also told them Braidy would be building mills in other states, in Saudi Arabia and “buy a multi-billion-dollar European automotive and aerospace conglomerate that had more than 50,000 employees,” the report said.

Ahead of a visit by a Louisville news reporter to the mill site in Ashland, Bouchard ordered a fence to go up around the site at the cost of $100,000, even though no construction had been started since a June 2018 groundbreaking, the report said. The fence was built to “leave the reporter with the misimpression that mill construction had begun,” the report said.

Also:Braidy Industries breaks ground on Bevin-backed, $1.5B aluminum mill

At one point in 2019, Kiewit, the contractor of the mill project, revised its construction costs from $900 million to $1.5 billion, which would have raised the total cost of the project from $1.8 billion to $2.4 billion, the report said. When Bouchard was told that by the head of a Braidy subsidiary, he told that person to “not send any emails about Kiewit’s new verbal cost estimate.” The report said Bouchard never told the board about the cost hike.

The report said that incident “raises serious questions about Mr. Bouchard’s ethics, judgment and willingness to expose Braidy to risk and potential liabilities.”