GE moves to bankrupt Tinkler

Nathan Tinkler outside the NSW
Supreme Court
SiN Images

GE Commercial Australasia has moved to bankrupt former resource properties dealer Nathan Tinkler over $2.803 million in payments owing under a "US$ Aircraft Loan Facility Agreement" dated November 17, 2010.

A creditors petition obtained by Sydney Insolvency News outlines how Tinkler, 39, was served a bankruptcy notice issued by the Official Receiver on June 25. 

He failed to pay or otherwise comply with the requirements of the notice and on July 22 GE filed a creditors petition and affidavits in support of an application for a sequestration order. GE said it has no security over Tinkler's assets.

Tinkler has had a long battle with GE over a Dassault Falcon 900C executive jet and an Augusta A109S helicopter which were seized by receiver Nathan Landrey of FTI Consulting on behalf of GE in 2012. Landrey subsequently placed the aircraft for sale. Whatever he was able to recoup has left a substantial shortfall. GE's petition refers to Tinkler owning property in Newcastle.

The bankruptcy notice and creditors petition followed a judgement debt handed down in favour of GE in the Supreme Court of NSW on May 19 this year. The judgement sum was $2.252 million. It's assumed the additional $551,000 approximate is interest. The matter is due to return to the Federal Court on September 2, 2015.

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Team Tinkler cops new orders to produce

Nathan Tinkler leaving the NSW Supreme Court.
Photo: SiN Images

NATHAN Tinkler and his inner circle of advisers have been ordered to leave no hard drive unexamined in pursuit of any reference to plans by Tinkler's Mulsanne Resources to buy into emergent Queensland coal play, Blackwood Corporation.

The orders were made late on Friday, March 15 by Supreme Court judge Paul Brereton. 

The judge spent two days listening to Tinkler and his cohorts being grilled by lawyers acting for Robyn Duggan and John Melluish of Ferrier Hodgson, who are joint liquidators of Mulsanne Resources.

SiN Feature: Tinkler's liquidators get personal

THE spectre of bankruptcy looms over Nathan Tinkler after lawyers probing the failure of the coal baron’s Mulsanne Resources switched the focus to his personal finances and the family trust controlled by his wife.

Robert Newlinds SC, conducting a public examination on behalf of Mulsane’s liquidators, told the court last Friday that Tinkler declared taxable income for the financial year to June 30, 2011 of $9,834.00.

Tinkler confirmed that apart from $250,000 in various joint bank accounts, he relied on his wife for handouts.

“I’m very lucky, yes,” he said with a straight face.

For the previous day and a half Nathan Leslie Tinkler had been quizzed on the events leading up to Mulsanne’s default on a $28.4 million obligation to coal explorer Blackwood Corporation.

Tinkler signed a Share Placement Agreement (SPA) on May 6, 2012, committing Mulsanne to purchasing a third stake in Blackwood, which is 51 per cent owned by global commodities house Noble Group.

He formally defaulted on his obligation to pay the agreed $28.4 million on July 19, 2012. The liquidators’ examinations come six months after Blackwood ran out of patience and applied to have Mulsanne wound up.

Ferrier Hodgson’s Robyn Duggan and John Melluish were appointed joint liquidators on November 20, 2012. They have been investigating Mulsanne’s affairs and the events leading up to and since its default.

The sudden shift in questioning last Friday brought Tinkler’s lawyer, Alec Leopold SC indignantly to his feet. What did Tinkler’s taxable income have to do with Mulsanne, he objected?

Tinkler's notebooks telling no tales - yet

Nathan Tinkler
Photo: SiN Images

LIQUIDATORS Robyn Duggan and John Melluish are playing a long game with slimmed down coal upstart Nathan Tinkler.

The public examinations into the failure of Tinkler's Mulsanne Resources are intended to help the Ferrier Hodgson duo determine if an action for breach of director’s duties is an option.

Whether this will ultimately lead to any recoveries for Blackwood Corporation, the creditor that sought Mulsanne’s winding up and is funding the examinations, is anyone’s guess. But they obviously think the fishing expedition worthwhile.