Qld Billionaire forced kids to pass sobriety, drugs tests to inherit
Billionaire coal baron Ken Talbot included in his will a letter of advice for his children, telling them to beware of “opportunists” and “temporary friends” after they received their slice of his fortune. READ THE FULL LETTER
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Billionaire coal baron Ken Talbot was determined to keep such a tight rein over his heirs after his death that he stipulated that each of his children must submit to alcoholism and drug testing by three independent doctors before they receive a slice of his fortune.
Talbot’s will written in 2002, eight years before his death, states that once his four children reach their 30th birthday they must get “written confirmation” they “are not alcoholics or drug users”.
SCROLL DOWN FOR THE LETTER TO HIS CHILDREN
Talbot also felt the need to reach out beyond the grave to give his three daughters and one son advice warning them to “be careful” that “opportunists” might try to grab a share of their wealth.
“You will have many new friends of a temporary nature,” he warned in a statement Talbot signed on November 29, 2002 to accompany his will.
“I consider that the worst thing I could do is to give any beneficiary for example a $1m payout at age 21.
“As a consequence beneficiaries will be kept on the drip feed until maturity,” Talbot states in his two page letter.
Youngest child, daughter Claudia was just eight years old when her father died, while Alexandra was 11 years old, Liam was 27 and Courtney was 25.
The will states that until his children reach the age of 30 the estate will only pay for their education such as school and university fees, board and lodging, as well as health cover with top scale medical benefits.
Once they hit 30 and the pass the drugs and alcohol test they can get 10 per cent of their inheritance, and the estate will pay for them to have annual check up at Toby Ford corporate health facility at Wesley hospital, the will states.
There is no suggestion that any of his beneficiaries suffer from drug or alcohol problems.
He stipulated that his kids would only get the remaining 90 per cent of their inheritance a decade after his death -- ie June 2020 - or when they reach 36, whichever is the later.
Talbot’s two older children from a previous marriage Liam, now 38, and Courtney, now 36, each received 24 per cent, with 52 per cent divided between his widow Amanda - his wife of 15 years - and her daughters Alexandra, 22, and Claudia, 19.
A 30 per cent slice of his fortune was set aside for a charitable foundation.
Talbot also insisted that they should pass a diploma course for company directors in Australia before getting their inheritance, however court documents state that some of the four children have obtained a slice without meeting this condition.
Although Alexandra told a court in 2019 that she and her younger sister Claudia had only received $12 million each, with $12 million also going to their mother Amanda and $16m each to their half-siblings.
At the time when Talbot died the estate was worth $1.1 billion, but friends say he always introduced himself as a “simple coal miner”.
At his private wake, held at Suncorp Stadium, his family served rum and coke, his favourite drink.
He made his fortune selling out of Macarthur Coal - the company he founded - for $860 million in April 2008, then investing in new mines around the world including a coal project in Mozambique which his estate still holds shares in.
Talbot died at Avima in the Republic of Congo on June 19, 2010, one month before his 60th birthday.
He was on a private jet with the entire board of mining company Sundance Resources when it crashed in thick jungle when they were going to visit a potential iron ore mine in Yangadou in the Republic of Congo.
They were missing for two days before the plane wreckage was found after a multinational air and ground search operation.
Three years before his death Talbot was charged with 35 counts of making corrupt payments to Queensland government Minister, Gordan Nuttall.
The corruption proceedings against Talbot were formally discharged after his death.
The estate is currently being managed by Brisbane lawyer Bill Boyd and accountant Paul Vincent.
Details of Talbot’s will were revealed when it was filed in the Supreme Court in Brisbane as part of a bitter legal fight between his heirs over the structure of a charitable foundation which is set to hold 30 per cent of his fortune.
Widow Amanda and Talbot’s three daughters wanted to set up two charitable foundations but eldest child, racing car driver Liam, who lives in a $5m mansion at Chandler, wanted to keep to his father’s dying wish alive and have a single charitable foundation.
The foundation will get $36m paid in cash to start with but will grow over time.
The barrister for administrators Bill Boyd and Paul Vincent told the court that the siblings “cannot work together at all in relation to the foundation”.
Amanda told the court that the relationship between herself and her two daughters on one hand and Liam and Courtney on the other was “strained” by “numerous disputes”.
Since Talbot’s death the value of the estate has shrunk.
Some assets such as a 16 per cent stake in Sundance Resources worth $191m were sold shortly after Talbot’s death, but others such as his stake in Minas de Revuboè, a coal mining company based in Mozambique, remain unsold.
Minas de Revuboe, which has a tenement for an mine in Tete province, is one of the biggest assets of the state and was once worth $540m.
Other assets include an apartment on Queensland’s Hamilton Island, 26 million shares in gas company Karoon Energy Limited shares some of which were sold last year for $1 a share, and the palatial Villa Calvi in the town of Blevio on the eastern shore of celebrity hangout Lake Como purchased for $22 million in December 2007.
The estate also owns a luxury 1920s apartment in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, near the Arc de Triomphe, although it was officially bequeathed to Claudia because she is the youngest and this will avoid hefty French asset transfer fees.
Talbot noted in his will that he wished the Paris apartment to remain in the Talbot family “forever for the use and enjoyment of the family”.
His will states that the each beneficiary be given business class airfares to Paris every three years so they can “visit and enjoy the Paris apartment”.
The estate also owns an apartment in Shanghai, China purchased for $5.3m in 2006 and a Learjet bought for $50m.
Court documents state that former executor Paul Bret, a Texan investment banker, had been set to sell the Mozambique company to global mining giant Anglo American for $540m in 2012, a deal that fell over.
There has been an extended history of efforts to sell the Talbot stake in Minas de Revuboè and that “uncertainties” continue to surround its sale, court documents state.
Mrs Talbot and her daughters have launched three Supreme Court cases related to the estate against administrator Mr Boyd including for breach of duty by Mr Boyd, losses as disappointed beneficiaries and for declarations of breach of duties.
The case is due to return to court on June 18.
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