News of the Year!!! THE AUSTRALIAN JANUARY 30, 2016 12:00Am...

News of the Year!!!

• THE AUSTRALIAN
• JANUARY 30, 2016 12:00Am

Tinkler finds cash to fund mine purchase

• Matt Chambers
• 
  Resources reporter
  Melbourne
  

Former coal magnate Nathan Tinkler says he has met the deadline for his $25 million effort to re-enter the coal industry, securing funding for his bottom-of-cycle purchase of the mothballed Dartbrook mine in the NSW Hunter Valley.


Mr Tinkler’s Australian Pacific Coal had until the end of January to find $25m or pay the seller, Anglo American, a $1m break fee, under a deal announced just before Christmas.
Yesterday, the former billionaire told The Weekend Australian that Australian Pacific Coal had raised the money, most of it through a $20m sale of new equity in APC.

The raising is expected to be revealed to the market on Tuesday, when Australian Pacific shares are due to come out of a trading halt they entered yesterday.

“Equity markets are tough, but there are still people out there who want to back coal,” Mr Tinkler said. “We’ve got pretty good networks in the sector and know who likes to invest, so we put that to work.”
Mr Tinkler made a fortune through debt-backed purchases of coal projects during the boom using debt, but lost it when the boom turned.

Australian Pacific shares have risen more than tenfold since July, when Mr Tinkler first invested in the company and struck a deal to become its managing director.
Following a 20 per cent rise in the share price yesterday, before the company went into a trading halt, Australian Pacific was worth $95m.

Mr Tinkler said he had personally not taken part in the $20m equity raising, indicating his stake in the miner will be diluted. Before the raising, Mr Tinkler and Trepang, controlled by Darwin developer John “Foxy” Robinson and Nick Paspaley, of the Paspaley pearling family, each owned 40 per cent of Australian Pacific.
The deal, which would see Australian Pacific take Anglo’s 83.3 per cent stake of Dartbrook, is contingent on several conditions, including joint venture Marubeni Coal not exercising pre-emptive rights.
The mine is just north of the Mount Pleasant project, which Rio Tinto has agreed to sell to a company controlled by Indonesia’s Salim Group for $US224m.

Australian Pacific plans to switch Dartbrook from an underground operation to an open-cut mine, subject to approvals, with a planned mining rate of five million tonnes a year.
Mr Tinkler said he was not put off by the depressed commodities prices this year.
“Thermal coal has been pretty steady over the past six months”, moving from about $US5 in September to about $US40 a tonne now, he said.

“I’d like to think we’re (close to) the bottom, but who knows. I know there is a lot more demand for high-quality Australian coal.”