Controversial former billionaire Nathan Tinkler is preparing for war with the high-profile voices against coalmining in the Hunter Valley as he looks to rebuild his fallen business empire. In his first interview since his company Australian Pacific Coal struck a Christmas Eve deal to buy the mothballed Dartbrook mine in NSW for $25 million, Mr Tinkler said he was ready to take on anti-coal advocates such as radio host Alan Jones and retailer Gerry Harvey.
The Hunter Valley’s horse breeders have become among the region’s most vocal opponents of coalmining amid fears they could be hurt by expansion of the industry.
“I’m looking forward to having those arguments because there’s a lot of myths that have been told over the last little while,” Mr Tinkler said.
“While those guys know nothing about the coal industry, I do know a fair bit about the horse industry.”
Mr Tinkler famously blew a large portion of his former billion-dollar wealth building up his Patinack Farm horse racing stable. Patinack was eventually sold off to settle debts, including sizeable amounts to Mr Harvey.
Mr Tinkler, who divides his time between Singapore and Brisbane, said he was unafraid of taking on the anti-coal lobby despite the high profiles of the likes of Mr Harvey and Jones.
“Just because they’re high profile doesn’t mean they know what they’re talking about,” he said.
Mining major Anglo American last year announced it would shut its Drayton South coalmine in the Hunter Valley with the loss of 500 jobs after authorities blocked an expansion of the mine on the grounds that it would critically affect horse studs in the region.
The Dartbrook mine being acquired by Australian Pacific Coal is about 5km from the nearest horse stud, putting it further away than Drayton South, but Mr Tinkler’s plans to redevelop the mine as an open pit rather than an underground operation are likely to make it a target for activists.
Open-pit mines have a far greater surface footprint than underground operations.
Mr Tinkler said he believed the communities of the Hunter Valley would be behind him, given the scale of potential jobs that would come from a restart of Dartbrook.
“I’ve got a pretty good idea who the people of the Hunter Valley are behind. I don’t think the people of the Hunter Valley are queuing up for 60 grand a year to shovel horse sheet all day,” he said.
“If that’s what the Hunter Valley breeders want to reduce the Hunter Valley to, and campaign against mining, that means there’s about 500 jobs to share across a pretty big population. The Hunter Valley is not going to survive or prosper on the basis of the horse industry alone.”
Mr Tinkler faces a tight timetable in assembling the funding for the Dartbrook acquisition, with Australian Pacific Coal required to have the $25m in cash by January 31. Despite little interest in coal among equity markets amid dismal prices for the commodity, Mr Tinkler said he could not see a scenario in which Australian Pacific Coal did not have enough money to meet its commitments at the end of the month.
While Australian Pacific Coal has flagged that it will tap existing investors and the broader market for $30m in fresh equity, Mr Tinkler said the $25m needed by the end of the month would probably come from himself and his key partners in Australian Pacific, Trepang Services.
Trepang is jointly owned by the Paspaley pearling family’s Nick Paspaley and Darwin developer John “Foxy” Robinson.
The challenge for Mr Tinkler in pulling together the money has not been made any easier by a $10m claim recently lodged against him by the Australian Taxation Office.
Mr Tinkler said he would be disputing both the amount and the validity of the tax office’s claim, describing the legal fight as “just part of the tax office negotiation”.
“I’ve been talking to those guys for a long time. They want to get anxious about it because I’m doing other things in the sector and trying to rebuild my wealth and create employment, and the punishment for that in Australia is to have the tax office in your pocket,” he said.
“I’ve had the tax office riding me for a long time, I’ve paid hundreds of millions of dollars personally in tax, but as we know in Australia that will never ever be enough.”
Mr Tinkler, a former mining electrician, made a rapid debt-fuelled fortune by investing in unloved coal assets during the boom but lost it when the boom ended. He also spent heavily on extravagances including the Newcastle Knights rugby league team and the A-League’s Newcastle Jets.
Despite his controversial reputation, Mr Tinkler said he believed he could still find support from the investment community when needed.
“My record on coal speaks for itself. I might have made some young foolish investments in the past around sporting investments and trying to contribute to my community, but they’re my personal losses,” he said.
“They’re not the losses of my shareholders or anybody who supported me in coal.
“So I think I’m happy to stand by my record in coal.” http://www.theaustralian.com.au/bus...s/news-story/d4657c94514158b734b65861390b343b
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