Queensland Nickel lent Clive Palmer’s pal Ian Ferguson $500,000

Clive Palmer ordered Queensland Nickel to pay his “old friend”, refinery boss Ian Ferguson $500,000 as personal loan.

Ian Ferguson arrives at the hearing.

Clive Palmer ordered Queensland Nickel to pay his “old friend” Ian Ferguson $500,000 when the refinery boss came to him for a personal loan, a court has heard.

Former QN general manager of operations Mr Ferguson told a Federal Court public examination into the collapse of the company that he went to Mr Palmer asking for money in 2014.

“I asked Clive if I could borrow some money,” Mr Ferguson said.

“He said yes and said he’d look after it ... and said he’d pay it out of Queensland Nickel.”

QN crashed into liquidation under $300m in debts in April, after 800 workers lost their jobs.

Despite being shown the loan agreement that showed Queensland Nickel Pty Ltd had loaned him the money, and it being due 30 days after he left the employ of QN for any reason, he said he did not need to pay it back to QN.

Mr Ferguson insisted he didn’t need to pay it back until May next year, and it was owed to Mr Palmer or QNI Metals and QNI Resources, QN’s Palmer-controlled parent companies.

General purpose liquidators FTI Consulting wrote to Mr Ferguson in April and demanded immediate payment. Mr Ferguson refused.

QN collapsed into liquidation in April under the weight of up to $300 million in debts, after being placed in voluntary adminis­tration in January. Nearly 800 workers lost their jobs, with taxpayers picking up the bill for ­almost $70m in redundancy entitlements.

The public examination into the corporate collapse continues in Brisbane today, with Mr Palmer scheduled to testify tomorrow.