Desperately seeking Clive Palmer: local firm to discuss buyback

Townsville firm leading a community buyback of Queensland Nickel wants urgent meeting with Clive Palmer.

The Townsville firm leading a community buyback of Queensland Nickel is pushing for an ­urgent meeting with Clive ­Palmer, as another company in the embattled MP’s empire plunged into liquidation yesterday.

Sister City Partners chairman Warwick Powell said the future of the north Queensland city’s economy depended on successful ­negotiations with Mr Palmer.

Palmer Aviation fell into liquidation yesterday, and another of Mr Palmer’s companies, Palmer Petroleum, is due back in the Brisbane Supreme Court this week.

SCP proposes a takeover of QNI similar to the successful “communitisation” of the Port of Townsville, where a shareholder base, including local companies and mum-and-dad investors, put a stop to the former Newman government’s plans to privatise the region’s industrial hub.

Under the QNI proposal, which would see debt exchanged for equity, the Yabulu refinery would be liquidated immediately, giving workers the best chance of recovering entitlements through a government scheme. SCP would then “top up” entitlements, bridging the gap between what workers are owed and what they receive from the government.

The second phase would involve a restructure of the company, which is losing about $1 million a week and is at least $420m in debt. The creditors ­effectively would become the owners, offering a reduced number of positions to staff “by merit and without prejudice”.

Mr Powell said the buyback had attracted more than 1000 expressions of interest, not only from former company managers, workers and creditors but also local businesses at risk if the company, worth about $1 billion to the region’s economy, were to fold.

“I guess people are starting to realise it’s not just another company,” he said. “While at a formal level QNI is a single private company, its size is of regional importance ... it accounts for about 8.5-9 per cent of gross regional product.”

Although SCPhad yet to ­approach the major creditor ­Aurizon, Mr Powell said talks were being held with mining representatives from New Caledonia and the Townsville port, where nickel ore accounted for 50 per cent of incoming shipments.

He said SCP was trying to set up a meeting with Mr Palmer and the administrators FTI Consulting to discuss the buyback option.

“We take the view that Mr Palmer has a serious and substantial seat at the table,” Mr Powell said. “The feedback we have ­received however is that most interested parties would find it very difficult to agree with any ­arrangement which would still see Mr Palmer having any ­involvement in the company.”

Yesterday at a creditors’ meeting, FTI Consulting was appointed liquidator of Palmer Aviation. Its sole asset, Mr Palmer’s Bombardier Global Express private jet, will be put up for sale next month.

Palmer Petroleum is locked in a dispute with Singapore-based company BGP Geoexplorer, which says it is owed half of the $16m payable for surveying work on a seabed off PNG. Mr Palmer has said the work was not up to standard. If Palmer’s lawyers fail to convince the court the creditors’ statutory demand that arises from the dispute should be set aside, Palmer Petroleum also will be declared insolvent. Judgment is expected this week.