Car loving coal king Matt Latimore share sale enough to buy 65 Ferrari’s

A sports-car loving Brisbane coal mining entrepreneur has reaped more than $50m cash from share sales over the past few weeks - enough to buy 65 top-of-the-range Ferrari’s if he wanted.

Ferrari-loving coal king Matt Latimore may be heading down to his local Prancing Horse showroom after pocketing an eye-watering $54m through a share sell-down this month.

Latimore sold through his family company 18 million shares in the coal mine operator Stanmore Resources taking advantage of a 261 per cent increase in the value of the stock over the past year.  Latimore, who joined the $2.2bn coal miner as a non-executive director in May, collected $40.5m after selling the shares on market on Wednesday at $2.25 each, Latimore still directly and indirectly owns more than 43.4m shares in Stanmore worth more than $105m.

The chairman and founder of Queensland coal mines operator M Resources also sold 50 million shares in Bowen Coking Coal, where he is non-executive director, on August 1 at 27.5c each, making a cool $13.8m. Bowen Coking shares have tripled over the past year. He still directly and indirectly owns more than 190m shares in Bowen Coking.

Latimore’s cash stash from the sales is enough to drive away 65 top of the range Ferrari SF90s that retail for about $840,009. Latimore says at the moment there is no alternative to metallurgical coal in the steel-making process.

Indeed, he notes it will play a crucial role in the move to renewables and will be required to make more electric vehicles, wind turbines and solar panels.

Matt Latimore

JACK OF ALL TRADES

Some early succession moves at the top of the state’s biggest building company.

Jack Hutchinson Jnr, the scion of the Hutchinson Builders empire, is joining his dad Scott on the board of the $3bn company after an extended period as an observer and advisor. The 30-year-old is certainly up for the job, with Scott telling your diarist he was keener to step up to the plate than he was at his age. “I also joined the board when I about 30 but was not as keen on the responsibility,” Scott says from the US where he is attending this year’s Burning Man festival in Nevada. “I was always keener on music. It’s good he is keen because I won’t live forever and he will take over from me eventually.”

Jack Jnr is a qualified quantity surveyor, a licenced builder and holds an MBA from London Business School as well as Bachelor of Property from Bond University. The young man also has worked across various project and operational roles within Hutchies, as well as within other property, construction, and financial firms in both Australia and the United Kingdom.

It has been a big year for Jack Jnr who back in July married Indonesian-born beauty Fatya Junissa Azlika after meeting her while studying in the United Kingdom.

We hear Jack Jnr and Fatya’s wedding ceremony on the rooftop of the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art was one of the social events of the year. Guests travelled from far and wide to be there, including Fatya’s family and friends from Indonesia. The happily married couple, with Aussie family and friends in tow, then travelled to Bali for a Sumatran cultural wedding ceremony at the beachfront villa, Phalosa, on the island’s south-west coast.

Jack Hutchinson

ON TIME

We hear Adina Watches boss Grant Menzies will have to get on his racing bike a bit more often to stay in shape. Menzies’ dad Bob, who founded the Brisbane-based watchmaker back in the early 1970s, has decided at the age of 80 to hand over the responsibility for visiting jewellery shops in regional Queensland to his son. “I have massive shoes to fill,” says Grant. “Yesterday I called on two customers that have both been with us for 50 years - Patrick Jewellers in Gladstone and Phil Peel Jeweller in Rockhampton. It is up to me to step up and enjoy the carrot cake and sandwiches.” Regional Queensland has been crucial to the success of Adina over the past half century. Adina is now the official timekeeper of the iconic Brisbane to Gladstone Yacht Race and presents bespoke timepieces to the crew of the winning boat. Last year’s winner Wistari is owned by the Patrick family in Gladstone, who own the city’s main jewellery outlet that has stock Adina watches for decades.

Adina Watches’ Grant Menzies