Bounty Mining kicked off trading on the ASX after generating $18m from investors

In another sign of the rebounding fortunes of the resources sector, coal miner Bounty Mining lists on the ASX at a premium.

Bounty Mining chairman Gary Cochrane is predicting a return to boom times in the coal industry. Picture: AP/ Matthew Brown

COAL BOUNTY

It’s another sign of the rebounding fortunes of the resources sector.

Bounty Mining, which has extensive holdings in Queensland, kicked off trading on the ASX yesterday after generating $18 million from investors.

That makes it the biggest coal company float in eight years and follows an earlier $17 million round of fundraising.

Lead brokers PAC Partners are so bullish they reckon they could have amassed more than $40 million as part of the IPO.

Now capitalised at about $120 million, Bounty is chaired by Gary Cochrane, who made a name for himself as the founder of Millennium Coal in Queensland.

He’s also got plenty of skin in the game as the third biggest Bounty shareholder with a 7.4 per cent stake in the company.

Cochrane is talking about a return to boom times as sourcing people and equipment becomes more difficult.

Speculation that China may impose retaliatory tariffs on US coal products can only work in his favour.

Bounty shares wrapped up their first day of trading at 39.5¢, up slightly from the issue price of 35¢.

COOKING WITH GAS

Bounty is still in loss-making mode, reporting $2.4 million in red ink during the December half. That followed a $675,076 net loss in the last financial year.

But it hopes to shift in to production mode as soon as next year with some of the distressed assets it will pick up in the Bowen and Laura basins.

The company has struck a deal to acquire the Cook Colliery near Blackwater for $31.5 million, as well as other assets from Glencore for an additional $10 million.

Cook attained notoriety last year when one of its former owners, Caledon Coal, went bust with debts of $4 billion (YES BILLION) just a few months after flooding forced the mine to close.

Caledon, which was owned by Chinese-state entity Guangdong Rising Assets Management (GRAM), fell over owing $22 million to workers and another $24 million to the Wiggins Island Coal Export Terminal.

About 200 workers lost their jobs in the disaster.

GRAM paid more than $400 million for Caledon in 2011 and, in a grimly ironic twist, the company’s demise came just as thermal and coking coal prices started recovering strongly.

DEALER BAN

It looks like the end of the road, in a manner of speaking, for Cairns car dealer Colin William Hulbert.

The corporate cop announced this week that it had permanently banned him from engaging in credit activity after concluding that he is likely to contravene credit laws in the future.

In April last year, the Federal Court found Hulbert’s company Cash Brokers encouraged consumers in an isolated Aboriginal community to take out loans with a 48 per cent interest rate from his firm Channic between 2008 and 2012.

The buyers, who were also charged brokerage fees of up to $990, then bought vehicles from his firm Ang Hulbert & Associates.

Channic, Cash Brokers and Hulbert were fined a total of $776,000 for breaching credit laws and engaging in unconscionable conduct.

Consumers won nearly $48,000 in compensation – but it was a Pyrrhic victory since it was never paid.

ASIC, which obtained costs order of $420,000, has also walked away empty-handed.

It secured court orders in March to wind up Channic and Cash Brokers over their failure to pay the fines and cost orders.

Hulbert could not be reached for comment yesterday.