Billionaire Brian Flannery invests in Metallica Minerals

One of Australia’s wealthiest investors has put his money behind a struggling Queensland bauxite explorer.

BILLIONAIRE FILL UP

One of Australia’s wealthiest investors has become a key stakeholder in a struggling Brisbane bauxite explorer.

The private investment vehicle of billionaire coal baron Brian Flannery just played a key role in the $4.9m capital raising announced last week by Metallica Minerals.

That entity, Ilwella Ptd Ltd, acted as a sub-underwriter for about $2.2m of the money.

Brian Flannery

It’s the latest in a lengthy list of investments in junior miners by Ilwella, which Flannery created after pocketing a whopping $530m from the sale of his Felix Resources to Yanzhou Coal in 2009.

Metallica has long been aiming to start production at its Cape Flattery Silica Sands project in far north Queensland. It now expects to start making the first shipments by 2023.

Global demand for the stuff, which is used in glass, fracking, abrasives and more, is tipped to grow from $US8bn today to $US20bn by 2024.

But Metallica continues to do it tough, suffering a $2.56m loss in the half-year to December. Accumulated losses to date exceed $42m.

FLOATING ON AIR

There’s a reason it sounded too good to be true.

Brisbane entrepreneur Joe Andon breathlessly revealed plans this week for what he claimed was a world first Aussie invention.

He said his Vuly Trampolines business was poised to unveil the VULY AIR, an anti-gravitational product deploying NASA technology for replicating weightlessness.

The award-winning young gun claimed the breakthrough product would create 70 new tech and manufacturing jobs, as well as generate more than $50m in export sales in the first 12 months.

Joe Andon

“Our R & D team has been working on this for seven years. Now it’s come to fruition,’’ Vuly said in media release crafted by Sydney-based PR operative Max Markson.

“At Vuly we want to make the impossible, possible. Vuly Air is a game changer…. We‘ve taken care of all the magnetic repulsion elements and all a customer has to do is plug it in!”

Andon claimed both NASA and Sir Richard Branson were keen to check out the trampoline. He also said the first 16 models would be gifted to global identities, including Beyonce, Kim Kardashian, Elon Musk and Harry & Meghan.

But how exactly would this thing work? When City Beat followed up with Markson, he acknowledged it was all an elaborate April Fool’s Day joke!

IN THE KNICK OF TIME

Fund manager Ben Cleary just made it out of Queensland in the nick of time, narrowly dodging the latest lockdown drama.

The St Joseph’s College old boy, who now runs Tribeca Investment Partners Asia, spent the past few weeks on a road show with a difference across the Sunshine State.

Cleary and his team cruised around in a converted black touring coach that they dubbed the Tribeca Global Natural Resources Inflation Express, with that phrase emblazoned on both sides of the vehicle.

Ben Cleary

One of his old mates from Terrace, Dan Barry, was given the job of sourcing the transport and he managed to find it within 48 hours in Townsville.

The bus was then gutted and retrofitted over the next five days with sofas, fridges and a boardroom table where they could meet with clients.

We hear the bus just crossed the border recently and was last spotted blocking traffic outside a pub in Double Bay, where Cleary was seen knocking back a schooner of XXXX to celebrate the success of the venture.

Originally published as Billionaire Brian Flannery invests in Metallica Minerals