Has Clive Palmer gone loco?

[noco]

What a nasty character this Palmer has turned out to be with his business and political saga.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opi...d/news-story/23849ee9d714916de57ed182e3cecc85

Unfortunately for taxpayers and for those relying on Mr Palmer for their livelihoods, the “billionaire’’ has received minimal scrutiny from much of the supposedly serious media. The ABC, where his syrupy chats with Tony Jones were based on mutual antagonism towards Tony Abbott, has only recently paid any serious attention to Australia’s very own Silvio Berlusconi. The Australian Financial Review and its Fairfax Media brethren have been all but missing in action.

Any objective assessment of Mr Palmer’s record would conclude that his capricious and sometimes duplicitous conduct in business and politics has taken an incalculable toll on the federal budget, the Queensland budget, university finances, relations with China, good government in general, Sunshine Coast tourism, Coolum property owners and many others. Yesterday, he whinged that the Queensland government had refused to support Queensland Nickel. It needed to be at the forefront of supporting the people of Townsville, he said. By supporting him. Taxpayer largesse, however, has its limits.

 

[noco]

Another day has passed and still no settlement on what is happening with Th Nickel Refinery in Townsville.

Palmer is trying to wedge the Government for financial assistance and I think they have called his bluff.

As a private investor he should be compelled to sell off some of his other assets to save 1600 jobs.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/new...r/news-story/157bb0171c8dd398ee8ad4183968572f

 

[noco]

As mentioned previously, the QN refinery is an environmental hazard waiting to happen and because Palmer has not acted on some rectification he is now being sued by the appropriate authorities.....The residue ponds are rich in iron ore which could be recovered at a reasonable cost so I am told......
This hazard has been an ongoing problem for years and Palmer has done nothing about it.
He used $15 million of QN finances for his dash to parliament.

https://au.news.yahoo.com/qld/a/30317866/palmers-qld-nickel-to-face-trial/

 

[noco]

More financial information on Palmer's QN refinery....the QN money he has wasted would have been enough to see him through this tight squeeze until a recovery in the nickel price.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/new...t/news-story/960d426deba473babf59f494b250b8cb

The sale agreement, obtained by The Australian, show that Queensland Nickel came into Mr Palmer’s hands with $US40m in working reserves.

However, Mr Palmer overcame the contractual restrictions to spend tens of millions of dollars of the Townsville refinery’s working capital on golf courses on the Gold Coast, buying the Hyatt *Regency resort at Coolum (now a defunct dinosaur park), a wedding venue, luxury cars and a coal tenement.

Last financial year, the refinery company “forgave” $38.3m in loans made to other entities controlled by Mr Palmer. While $27.6m was shifted from Mineralogy to Queensland Nickel in 2013 to help it navigate a weak market, Mr Palmer no longer has the ability to draw funds from elsewhere. The days of lavishing employees with overseas holidays and Mercedes-Benz cars as Christmas bonuses are long gone.

“Due to the current nickel price being lower than QN’s cost of production, QN can only sustain itself by external cash injections. Mineralogy is not in a financial position to make such *financial injections in the future,” Mr Wolfe, who is also the chief *financial controller for Mr Palmer’s other companies, including Mineralogy, said in his affidavit.

There is also little prospect of relief from a recovery in nickel prices. If the latest nickel price forecasts from investment bank Goldman Sachs are accurate, Queensland Nickel may be years away from returning to profit.

That helps explain the reluctance of the Commonwealth, Westpac, ANZ and NAB banks, plus Queensland’s Suncorp, to loan money to Queensland Nickel. It may also explain the reluctance of Mr Palmer to step in with funding from his own pockets, if indeed he actually has that sort of money to spend.

While the problems at Queensland Nickel can be condensed down to the weakness in nickel prices, the business’s situation has not been helped by its links to Mr Palmer’s other interests. As WA Supreme Court judge Paul Tottle noted in his judgment on Monday rejecting Mineralogy’s grab for cash, Queensland Nickel was deemed sufficiently profitable as recently as the 2014 financial year to donate more than $15m to the Palmer United Party.

While the problems are real, there does appear to be an *element of brinkmanship at play.

 

[noco]

Palmer's bluff has be called by the state government and the banks and the refinery is still open for business.....If
he is not prepared to open his books and make a disclosure, then he has something to hide.
I believe he has the cash but he would sooner sacrifice 16oo jobs to save him having to spend millions of dollars fixing the tailing dams which could well turn into an environmental disaster early in 2016.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/bus...f/news-story/443f0752a31dd75aa92b918bd0d9c9bb

 

[qldfrog]

Palmer's bluff has be called by the state government and the banks and the refinery is still open for business.....If
he is not prepared to open his books and make a disclosure, then he has something to hide.
I believe he has the cash but he would sooner sacrifice 16oo jobs to save him having to spend millions of dollars fixing the tailing dams which could well turn into an environmental disaster early in 2016.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/bus...f/news-story/443f0752a31dd75aa92b918bd0d9c9bb

Indeed by having qld government money, he would have made an ally in the coming disaster toward the end of the rainy season or the first cyclones
will give a new dimension to Saving the great barrier reef, in the meantimes, the greens aka watermelons care about illegal immigrants...
Who is to speak in the name of Australia: the land, the environment, its people???

 

[noco]

Who would want to change to be the shoes of Clive Palmer?

The man has been a complete fool who has made lots of money in good times but does not know how to handle the bad times.

The rot set him with his revenge on the Newman Government and topped off by low commodity prices.

IMHO his PUP will also be short lived after the next election......He will be left with one senator and no seat for himslelf in the lower house.



http://www.theaustralian.com.au/new...l/news-story/2d0046e4d59e3ddccbf93425a7f3e3bb

 

[qldfrog]

Who would want to change to be the shoes of Clive Palmer?

pick me pick me, seriously, however he fails with QNI, he will always have more left than I will ever have, and he still has the ability to influence, give me his assets and name and this country would change for the better, but Luutzu woiuld be unhappy!

 

[noco]

Palmer has been caught out......here we have a refinery which was supposed to close last Monday and is now still operating....


http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opi...y/news-story/8a094a901fe6c8c07c3f2fbcef98ff99

 

[noco]

Poor old Clive has graciously dipped into his own pocket to save the jobs at his nickel refinery in Townsville...What a wonderful gesture by this con man.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/new...s/news-story/c16488ee79599ac3ae62b6ec66ea1f90

Workers at Clive Palmer’s Queensland Nickel refinery have been told “it’s business as usual” *despite mounting evidence to the contrary.

There was confusion at the Yabulu refinery near Townsville yesterday as rumours of an “imminent” closure announcement *coincided with the release of a letter from Queensland Nickel managing director Clive Mensink suggesting there was no cause for alarm.

In the letter, workers were told Mr Palmer had dipped into his personal funds and made available $2.4 million to ensure staff received their Christmas wages and the company continued to operate. It went on to describe media reports about last week’s West Australian court case, in which a judge dismissed Mr Palmer’s bid for $US48m from his estranged business partner Citic Pacific, as “highly misleading”.

“Mineralogy urgently sought some payment so it could be provided to Queensland Nickel. The judge in the case did not think that the prejudice of you losing your job was a good enough reason to deal with the matter before trial and *decided to let the Chinese continue to take the concentrate from Mineralogy leases and not pay for it,” the letter read.

“The injustice of the current situation is deplorable and I want you to know your management team is working around the clock to find a solution.”

Workers had allegedly been warned by senior staff to expect bad news as early as yesterday afternoon but by last night word had spread of a reprieve for at least another week. Australian Workers Union northern district secretary Rod “Cowboy” Stockham said workers were sick of being drip-fed information and called on Queensland Nickel to “say it how it is”.

“If the purpose of the letter was to say ‘Don’t panic’, it has not achieved its goal,” he said. “But I am hopeful that the company will trade out of this glut.

“If there is still hope and they need more time, just come out and say so to the troops, but everyone is still on tenterhooks and we need to know what’s going on.”

 

[drsmith]

Poor old Clive has graciously dipped into his own pocket to save the jobs at his nickel refinery in Townsville...What a wonderful gesture by this con man.

The question now is how long he can (or is willing) to sustain that.

 

[noco]

The question now is how long he can (or is willing) to sustain that.

I am not sure Doc.....his biggest worry is those tailing dams.....As I keep saying, it is a disaster waiting to happen...It is going to cost him millions to rectify and I believe this is what he is trying to avoid....He has been putting it off since he bought the place and this why the state government is suing him to do something about it.

It was bad enough before he bought the refinery when BHP owned it at which time something should have been executed then.....BHP knew about it and then sold the worry to Palmer...I don't believe Palmer realized the real hazard that was looming....He was caught napping.

 

[-Bevo-]

Noco I'm in Townsville also not sure what rumors you have heard some people are telling me
Clive wants to close the plant and if some of the articles that its costing 2 million a month just
to keep running are true Im sure it will close my guess is after New year.
The staff would have to know or at least the smart ones are shipments of ore still being
delivered to the port?
My guess is those tailing dams contain metals that would be worth $$ so even if it does close
there would still be a small workforce there for sometime.

 

[noco]

Noco I'm in Townsville also not sure what rumors you have heard some people are telling me
Clive wants to close the plant and if some of the articles that its costing 2 million a month just
to keep running are true Im sure it will close my guess is after New year.
The staff would have to know or at least the smart ones are shipments of ore still being
delivered to the port?
My guess is those tailing dams contain metals that would be worth $$ so even if it does close
there would still be a small workforce there for sometime.

The dams are rich in iron ore.

I don't know when the court case comes up.....maybe he is trying quit while he is in front and let someone else worry about it.....I think he is caught up in his own web.

But Geez...what is $2 million a month to him...it is peanuts....He keeps saying things will come good by mid 2016.

 

[drsmith]

With over 200 in job losses at QN and the company itself now in voluntary administration, is this the beginning of the end for the uncle Clive show ?

 

[noco]

With over 200 in job losses at QN and the company itself now in voluntary administration, is this the beginning of the end for the uncle Clive show ?

Doc, I would not like to predict the future of QN or even that of Clive Palmer......Come what may I hope he gets all that is coming to him because he stuffed up Queensland politics by his revenge on Newman and in turn allowed the useless Labor Party and "Ms half a million a year" Premier Anatazia Palazczuk to stuff up Queensland even more.

I feel sorry for the workers who are caught up in Palmer's tangled web.


http://www.theaustralian.com.au/bus...n/news-story/fe5cf501b4ab43bae45209cbb5bc3622

 

[Glen48]

looks like we can now add Masters 7K staff to the car manufactures going out the door...

 

[noco]

looks like we can now add Masters 7K staff to the car manufactures going out the door...

Glen, who is Masters?

And what is the relevance of Palmer and the car manufacturers?

 

[Tisme]

looks like we can now add Masters 7K staff to the car manufactures going out the door...

Shame, because I liked shopping at Masters.

 

[SirRumpole]

Shame, because I liked shopping at Masters.

They are unknown in my area.

Bunnings and Mitre10 are about it.

for noco (read the ABC mate )

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-18/woolworths-to-exit-masters-hardware/7094858