http://www.smh.com.au/business/cbd/busy-billionaire-robert-millne...

http://www.smh.com.au/business/cbd/...swoop-on-tpg-stock-shock-20160925-groavo.html

• SEPTEMBER 27 2016

Busy billionaire Robert Millner still has time to swoop on TPG stock shock

• Colin Kruger, CBD

The hardest-working man in corporate Australia, Robert Millner, may have turned 66 this month but he's lost none of his stock-picking agility despite chairing at least five ASX-listed companies.
The rugby-loving billionaire swooped like a seagull on a chip when David Teoh's broadband darling, TPG, failed to meet the market's lofty expectations last week.
One group of customers is screwed over the most by banks, who increase their interest margin well above the Reserve Bank’s cash rate.
Millner – who is also chairman of TPG – came in just short of Tuesday's intraday low, grabbing 100,000 shares at $8.62 each, according to a filing on Monday with the ASX. The stock ended the day 22 per cent lower at $9.28.
Not bad considering he also had to front the press as chairman of TPG's second-largest shareholder – his conglomerate mothership, Washington H. Soul Pattinson – to describe TPG's underwhelming performance as a "great result".

Robert Millner's family holdings in Brickworks and Soul Patts has been criticised by proxy firms. Photo: Getty Images
"I feel a lot of the analysts had not done their homework well enough," he told the ABC's Ticky Fullerton of the market's sour reaction.
Keep in mind that Millner has plenty of potential distractions from these bargain buying opportunities – like his chairman's duties at another Soul Pat satellite: cashed up coal miner New Hope.
The coal miner has had its problems with government approvals for the expansion of its New Acland mine in Queensland but the well-timed acquisition of a 40 per cent stake in the Bengalla mine in the Hunter Valley for $849 million shows once again Rob is no slouch.
And then there is the need to keep an eye on Australia's housing boom, which is doing wonders for another company that Millner chairs, Brickworks, which has that thoroughly uncontroversial cross shareholding with Soul Pattinson.
He also chairs investment shops Milton Corp and BKI Investments.
In fact, Millner's only easy seat is at Australian Pharmaceutical Industries, where chairman's duties are handled by cousin-in-law Peter Robinson.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/bus...t/news-story/46b9ee5511351fa14fe444aa7eea7881

Millners test feasibility of Ammaroo phosphate project.

• the Australian
• 12:00AM October 27, 2016
• Save
• MATT CHAMBERS
  
  Resources reporter
  Melbourne
  @mattchambers1

As billionaire Gina Rinehart bets big on English fertiliser plans, fellow rich-listers the Millner family are focusing on local phosphate play Rum Jungle, where former Rio Tinto executive Chris Tziolis is studying a plan he says can spur a significant new industry in the Northern Territory.
Rum Jungle, 38 per cent owned by the Millner-controlled Washington H Soul Pattinson after a May equity raising, has kicked off a feasibility study on the Ammaroo phosphate project, 240km southeast of Tenant Creek.
The first stage of the project is seen as having a roughly $300 million first stage that would produce 1 million tonnes of phosphate rock concentrate for Asian markets.
Beyond this, broader plans involve a push to expand into a $1bn-plus ammonium-phosphate fertiliser operation with downstream processing.
Plans for Ammaroo are stepping up at the same time Mrs Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting is shining a light on the appeal of agricultural investment through her $370m shootout with a Chinese partner for the S. Kidman cattle empire, and yesterday’s announcement of a $US300m ($393m) royalty financing deal on a fertiliser project in Yorkshire with London’s Sirius Minerals.
The Ammaroo plans are ambitious for a junior with a market value of just $18m.
But Rum Jungle has a respected major shareholder that has been increasing its share and is assembling a development-focused board as it evolves from an explorer.
It plans to rename itself Verdant Minerals at its annual meeting in Melbourne next month and recently appointed former Incitec Pivot chief operating officer James Whiteside to its board.
With chairman David Muller flagging his intention to retire at the AGM as the company shifts into development gear, Mr Whiteside looms as a potential successor.
Mr Tziolis, former chief development officer of Rio subsidiary Energy Resources of Australia, says the $300m first stage is seen as one that would start generating cash as the company works on a bigger plan.
“The longer-term game is the production of ammonium phosphate fertilisers for Australian and Asian markets,” he said.
“The Northern Territory is one of the few parts of the world where you’ve got the three key nutrient ingredients, nitrogen from gas, phosphate and potassium, all within close proximity.”
The Adelaide-Darwin railway features heavily in the plans.
“You can service Australian markets through South Australia into western NSW and Victoria, and north to Darwin for distribution in Northern Australia, if we can get agricultural growth going there, and into Asia.”
Early plans are to finance the first stage through a combination of equity and debt.
Mr Tziolis says the company will take 12 to 15 months on the study and getting environmental and native title approvals — something that is becoming increasingly important to attract foreign equity partners.
“Talking to industry people around the world over the past few months, there is a bit of concern about investing in early stage projects in Australia, particularly in getting terms of environmental approval and native title sorted out,” he said.