Tinkler back in coal with $150m buy

Former coal magnate Nathan Tinkler is back in the resources game in a $150 million deal to buy a Queensland coal asset.

Mr Tinkler, with the backing of US-based investment bank Jefferies Group, a subsidiary of Leucadia National Corp, told The Australian from his Singapore base last night he had purchased Peabody Energy’s Wilkie Creek thermal coalmine.

Pre-empting questions about his financial ability to fund such a deal, Mr Tinkler said there would be a lot of people who would like to be “as broke as me”.

The 38-year-old acknowledged he had been through a tough couple of years but said he had learned his lessons.

“I’ve learnt a lot of lessons in business and a few more personally in the last few years and all of that goes to building character,” he said.

The former billionaire, whose fortunes collapsed as coal markets turned last year, is set to ­appear before the Independent Commission Against Corruption in Sydney on Friday, an appearance he said he was looking forward to. “I look forward to appearing at ICAC and setting the record straight,” he said.

“I have nothing to hide at ICAC and I’m looking forward to putting all the rumours to bed.”

ICAC has heard allegations that Mr Tinkler’s Buildev property development group donated $66,000 to a secret Liberal Party slush fund before the March 2011 state election.

The money was ­allegedly used to bankroll Newcastle Liberal MP Tim Owen’s successful election campaign.

Mr Tinkler’s previous fortune was built on coal.

He entered the coal market in 2006, aged 30, to buy some NSW coal tenements, an interest he turned into a $400 million-plus windfall. He then bought the Maules Creek coal asset from Rio Tinto in 2009 for $480m, using debt, and when he floated his company Aston Resources a year later, that project was valued by the market at about $2 billion.

Mr Tinkler then sold 10 per cent of his Maules Creek project to Japan’s Itochu for $370m, which valued the asset at $3.75bn. That was followed by a deal in December 2011 in which he merged Aston Resources into Whitehaven Coal, emerging with a 19.4 per cent stake that was valued at about $1bn at the time.

His luck ran out, however, and after doubling down once too often, and with rising bills from his other interests -- mostly sport-related -- he had to sell out of Whitehaven last year at ­almost half of what it was worth when he bought the stake, in order to repay debts.

“It has been a tough time over the last couple of years,” he said.

“I’ve been assigned blame for just about anything that has happened in the industry for the last few years. I’m a bit sick of being its whipping boy.

“I haven’t been treated fairly, but no prizes for giving up. The people who know me have stuck by me and my team have been very supportive and good to me.

“We have a strong record in the coal industry for identifying value and I think we’ve done it again here.”