PALMER TO RECEIVE COOL $15M FROM PROPERTY SALE
EMBATTLED businessman Clive Palmer has pulled off an unlikely rescue by selling his corporate headquarters to a consortium including two major Australian property companies.
Mr Palmer began shopping around his Brisbane city headquarters, the Mineralogy House building, last September as he faced a legal barrage over the collapse of Queensland Nickel.
It later attracted interest as part of a $50 million parcel of four buildings that includes two assets being sold by US private equity heavyweight Blackstone.
Domestic property group GPT last year had conditional deals in place to buy the buildings but its interest fell away.
Instead, funds managers Charter Hall and Investa Property will buy the parcel of buildings, with Mr Palmer to receive about $15 million.
A Charter Hall-managed fund and Investa Commercial Property Fund will develop a skyscraper on the site.
Queensland Nickel’s liquidators threatened to press for the arrest of Mr Palmer last month when the former MP claimed he was too sick to front court.
Court documents also revealed that Mr Palmer – while using the morphine painkiller he claims harms his memory and judgment – orchestrated a complex corporate manoeuvre to try to obtain $135 million from his collapsed Queensland Nickel, issued high-level legal advice, and tweeted about “a certain confectionary business”.