Female membership helps Tattersalls Club avert financial disaster

A controversial move made by an exclusive Brisbane club, that once only allowed men to be full members, has likely saved it from financial disaster.

WORM HAS TURNED

The saying “go woke, and go broke” doesn’t apply to the illustrious Tattersalls Club, aka Queen St Workers Club. In fact, the decision in late 2018 to allow women as full members has probably saved the club from financial disaster.

City Beat spies tell us that about 10 per cent of the club’s more than 4500 members are now women who are increasingly attracting fellow lady high-flyers to visit and spend at Tatts. Richlister Maxine Horne, the chief executive of telecommunications and health group Vita, was a guest speaker at Tatts this week, reflecting the more feminine touch.

Tatt is now confident enough to take a “number of cautious and early steps” in an investment program to upgrade the facilities and improve revenues. It also plans to tap a $4.1m loan facility Westpac has made available at record low interest rates.

Maxine Horne

ROUGH START

QUEENSLAND gold and copper explorer Native Mineral Resources (NMR) got off to a bit of a rough start as a public company. NMR’s plans to debut on the ASX on Monday were kyboshed after an IT meltdown shut down the bourse for more than six hours.

Shares in the company, which raised $5.7 million, eventually started trading on Tuesday, a day behind schedule. Despite the early snafu, mining veteran and company founder Blake Cannavo says investor reaction has been positive.

Exploration drilling underway this week at Palmerville.

“Shares are up about 10 per cent so we are pretty happy,” says Cannavo, who has experience developing billion dollar mining projects in Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, South Africa and Western Australia. “We don’t just want to be an explorer but a developer.” The company’s main focus is the huge Palmerville tenement, 200km northwest of Cairns and the nearby Leane’s copper prospect where exploration drilling has commenced.

Cannavo says there is growing interest in copper because of its use in renewable energy systems. “There is talk about copper going from $8000 a tonne to $10,000 a tonne by 2024,” he says. The Palmerville project covers an area of 1800 sq kilometres with a length of 130km.

CHINESE BURN

TRADE frictions with China are starting to have an impact in Queensland. Mine contractor MACA has called in receivers on Carabella Resources, the Chinese owners of the Bluff PCI coal project in central Queensland over a debt of $34.7 million.

MACA operated the mine 20km east of Blackwater but the project was put into care and maintenance last month amid growing uncertainty about China’s ban on Australian metallurgical coal imports.

Carabella was bought in 2014 by China’s Wealth Mining, a subsidiary of privately owned China Kingho Energy Group. Bluff produces about a million tonnes a year of lower grade metallurgical coal, and MACA was handed a 10-year $700m contract to run the mine in 2018.

STOCKING FILLERS

THOSE looking for an early Christmas gift might fight a treasure when former Brisbane rich lister Keith Lloyd holds the city’s best garage sale next week.

Lloyd, the multi-millionaire veteran entrepreneur, is downsizing and will auction dozens of items from his Shafston House Estate - with a few antiques already raising eyebrows.

Two 1900s single-axle cannons are up for grabs with the current bids less than $2000, however buyers have been warned they must bring their own crane.

Items up for auction at Shafston House include this yacht. Pics Tara Croser.

Lloyd is also attempting to rid the estate of countless mahogany desks, chesterfield sofas, naked and semi-naked garden statues.

If none of those fit the bill, Lloyd has also put his 110ft superyacht Southern Cross II on the market with the current bid a bargain $1.03m.

Fittingly, Lloyds Auctioneers has been tapped to host the online sale at 7pm on Monday.

CRANK IT UP

POWDERFINGER bass player John Collins has joined the management committee of QMusic, the state’s music industry development body. Collins attended his first board meeting this week as the sector seeks to recover from the COVID-19 downturn. After two decades touring and recording with Powderfinger, JC has more recently turned to the world of managing live music venues. He opened the Triffid in Brisbane in 2014, filling a huge void in the Brisbane music scene. He then combined forces with music industry power brokers, Secret Sounds and Live Nation, to present The Fortitude Music Hall