Chinese buyer wants Townsville nickel refinery, says Clive Palmer
Clive Palmer has produced a $470m ‘offer’ from Chinese buyers for his dormant Townsville nickel refinery.
Clive Palmer claims he received an “unsolicited” $470 million offer to buy his dormant Townsville nickel refinery, just three days before the Supreme Court hears a bid to freeze his assets.
The resources magnate revealed the alleged offer late on Wednesday, before liquidators go to the Queensland Supreme Court on Thursday to ask judge John Bond to freeze more than $200m of Mr Palmer’s assets, to stop him selling or shifting his wealth offshore.
In the signed and sworn affidavit, Mr Palmer said he had been “advised” of the $470m offer from a company called Hengfeng Trading Shares Co Limited dated September 11, which allegedly advised the company had an extra $80m in cash to restart the beleaguered operation.
Taxpayer-funded special purpose liquidators PPB Advisory will on Thursday call for Justice Bond to freeze Mr Palmer’s assets, alleging he has been offloading property and other wealth and has been trying to avoid paying Queensland Nickel’s creditors. Queensland Nickel collapsed into liquidation last year, owing creditors $300m and costing nearly 800 jobs.
Mr Palmer’s affidavit claims the company was placed into voluntary administration last year because of the low nickel price, but said it had now recovered enough for the refinery to be reopened — if he had a $250m win in a separate court case in Western Australia.
“The effect of these proceedings is causing serious damage to efforts to restart the refinery and would mean nearly 3000 people in North Queensland would remain unemployed for an extended period,” Mr Palmer said in his affidavit. “The effect of the granting of any orders of the type the (liquidators) seeks will create a perception in the business and financial markets in respect of the refinery and its operations which will seriously disadvantage refinery’s prospects of reopening until after there is final judgment in the (broader) proceeding, which may be four years away.”
The freezing application is part of the liquidators’ broader legal assault on Mr Palmer, his family and his corporate interests, which alleges he acted as a shadow director, allowed the company to trade while insolvent, and breached his fiduciary duties.
Several weeks ago, Mr Palmer gave an undertaking to the court that he would not sell or deal with any of his assets until the matter had been heard. His affidavit says he did not act on the Hengfeng offer because he believed he was still bound by his promise.
The matter will be heard by Justice Bond on Thursday.
There is a blurry scanned copy of the “offer” from Hengfeng attached to Mr Palmer’s affidavit, much of it written in Chinese. Though Mr Palmer swore in his affidavit the offer was “unsolicited”, the letter say there had been “extensive” discussions with Mr Palmer’s advisers.
“I refer to our extensive discussions and engagement with your advisers in respect of our proposal to make an offer to acquire all of the assets of the refinery,” the letter from Hengfeng, which gives a Chinese and a Hong Kong address, reads. “This offer remains open until the 30th of September.’’
