Nathan Tinkler

Nathan Tinkler (born 1 February 1976) is an Australian mining industry executive and was previously the principal shareholder of Aston Resources and Whitehaven Coal.

He started out as a mining apprentice in the Hunter Valley, in New South Wales and set up his own business at age 26.

Much of his wealth was acquired from investments in the mining industry.

Tinkler qualified as an electrician at the Muswellbrook TAFE and commenced his involvement in the coal industry as an apprentice electrical fitter for Bayswater Coal.

At aged 26, he started his own mine machinery maintenance business called Custom Mining.

In 2006, Tinkler paid a $1 million deposit to buy the Middlemount coal mine in Central Queensland.

A year later, he sold his Middlemount stake to Macarthur Coal for $275 million with the payment largely in shares.

In May 2008 Tinkler sold his Macarthur shares for A$422 million in cash.

Tinkler was named by BRW magazine in September 2008 as Australia’s richest person aged 40 or less with a stated net worth of $441 million at age 32.

In 2008, Tinkler purchased the Maules Creek Mine coal deposit in New South Wales for $480 million from Rio Tinto and floated the vehicle for the deposit, Aston Resources Limited, in 2010 with a valuation of $1.2 billion.

In 2008, Tinkler established a racehorse enterprise, Patinack Farm, which became one of Australia’s largest locally owned racing organisations, experiencing tremendous success in a short period of time.

This success is highlighted by eight individual Group1 winners, more than 40 stake winners and over 200 metropolitan victories.

Patinack Farm consisted of three major properties including Sandy Hollow a 3,300 acre breeding facility, a 1,000 acre training facility and stud at Canungra on the Gold Coast and 950 acres of undeveloped horse country at Monegeeta, Victoria.

Patinack Farm owned as many as 600 broodmares, along with some of the highest potential stallions in Australia.

The Newcastle Jets hosted a community day at which 10,000 fans were admitted free for the clash against Melbourne Heart on 31 October 2010.

Membership of the club increased to over 10,000 and the club obtained the Hunter Medical Research Institute as a new sponsor.

On 31 March 2011 Tinkler assumed ownership of the Newcastle Knights rugby league club by a landslide vote of the eligible club members.

A few days later, text messages presented at the commission revealed that Tinkler's property development company, Buildev, had secretly paid $50,000 to produce anonymous flyers attacking Jodi McKay, the local state parliamentarian, in the lead-up to the 2011 state election, because she opposed the billion-dollar plan by Buildev to establish a coal export terminal in Newcastle.

In early 2012, Tinkler was named by BRW magazine as Australia’s youngest billionaire with a stated net worth of more than $1.18 billion.

In May 2012, Tinkler merged Aston Resources Limited and another coal mining company controlled by him, Boardwalk Resources, with Whitehaven Coal creating a leading independent coal mining company with market capitalisation in excess of $5 billion.

The Knights signed Wayne Bennett to a four-year coaching contract with the club, starting in 2012.

In April 2012 Tinkler handed back the Newcastle Jets A-league licence to the FFA.

The Federation said that Tinkler's Hunter Sports Group could not just hand back its licence, and was breaching a binding contract by walking away from the Jets.

Federation chief executive Ben Buckley refused to rule out the possibility of launching a damages claim against Tinkler that could go as high as $80 million.

On Melbourne Cup day 2012, Tinkler's private horse racing trainer, John Thompson, revealed that Tinkler's stable of horses had been forced to go without feed because the group was unable to pay suppliers.

Thompson also said that Tinkler's racing and breeding company, Patinack Farm, had been asked to leave its Hawkesbury private training facility because "the owner of the property just got sick of us being late with our rent".

However a spokesman for Tinkler said Patinack Farm had never run out of feed.

In December 2012, the Australian Taxation Office filed court documents to wind up Tinkler's Hunter Sports Group.

The action came two weeks after two of Tinkler's companies were placed into liquidation.

In June 2013, Tinkler’s shareholding in Whitehaven Coal was sold to his main financial backers.

In 2014, Tinkler was called to give evidence before the Independent Commission Against Corruption over allegations of illegal donations to New South Wales politicians.

He denied any wrongdoing and no corruption finding was made against him.

Tinkler sold Patinack Farm in 2014.

At a hearing of the New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) on 28 April 2014, it was revealed that Tinkler's Patinack Farm horse stud paid $66,000 to "Eightbyfive", a slush fund set up by an advisor to the allegedly corrupt NSW politician Chris Hartcher.

Tinker was appointed Managing Director of Australian Pacific Coal Limited in 2015.

In May 2015, after Newcastle Jets players and staff had not been paid for a month, Tinkler placed the Newcastle Jets into voluntary administration, listing debts of $2.7 million.

That resulted in the Football Federation of Australia terminating Tinkler's A-League licence, held by Hunter Sports Group.

It was the culmination of a soccer season in which the Jets recorded their worst-ever results on the way to collecting the competition's wooden spoon.

In February 2016, Tinkler was declared bankrupt by the Federal Court with his bankruptcy subsequently annulled in August 2018.

In December 2018, entities associated with Tinkler commenced proceedings in the New South Wales Supreme Court against Whitehaven Coal seeking compensation in relation to the 2012 acquisition of Boardwalk Resources Limited.