CLIVE’S EUROPEAN CRUISE
EMBATTLED TYCOON ON LUXURY TRIP WITH 20 MATES
CLIVE Palmer has splashed out on a luxury Mediterranean cruise with more than 20 of his closest friends and family.
The former mining magnate, who appeared before a Federal Court hearing last month clutching a sick bag and breathing device as liquidators pursued $66 million in entitlements for workers sacked from his Queensland Nickel refinery, was the picture of health as he boarded a luxury cruise ship in Spain, where it was a balmy 30C.
The Bulletin tracked the former billionaire to the Port of Barcelona, where Mr Palmer and a select group of close friends, family members and employees embarked on a 24day summer-holiday European cruise.
Tickets are understood cost about $10,000 each.
One of the attendees on the cruise is the adult son of former Queensland Nickel managing director Clive Mensink, who has been abroad for a year despite being the subject of two outstanding arrest warrants.
The inclusion of Mr Mensink’s son on board has led insiders to speculate Mr to Mensink will join the travelling party at some point on the cruise in order to see his son.
Mr Palmer boarded the Holland America ship Westerdam with his wife Anna Palmer and daughter Emily at lunchtime on Friday.
The 2000-passenger cruise ship boasts a spa facility, a basketball court, a pool room, restaurants, swimming pools and a fitness centre.
The itinerary will take the Palmer clan on a tour of the sparkling Mediterranean waters of Gibraltar, Majorca in Spain, Sicily in Italy, Malta, Greece, Croatia and its picturesque Adriatic citadel port of Dubrovnik.
The family had been staying at the luxury Hotel Regina before their cruise set sail. The former self-proclaimed billionaire, whose fortune has been whittled down to a reported $100 million, took off on the month-long holiday as he is fighting multiple court cases.
The Federal Government is seeking to recover $66 million in entitlements for nearly 800 sacked workers from the collapsed Queensland Nickel refinery. ASIC is examining the company’s accounts and assets, and that of its flagship company, Mineralogy. In May, when Mr Palmer faced a grilling in court over the collapse of Queensland Nickel, he appeared with a sick-bag, suffered memory loss and said his evidence may be unreliable because of the side-effects of morphine he was taking for pancreatitis.
The Federal Government has funded special purpose liquidators to commence recovery action over the collapse of Queensland Nickel, which went into voluntary administration last January, and then liquidation, with creditors owed $300 million.