Should this be a concern for Knight's fans?

[The Joker]

The financial woes of billionaire coal magnate Nathan Tinkler have reportedly worsened amid claims the entrepreneur has not made superannuation payments to the employees of his horseracing empire since November.

Documents from Mr Tinkler's Patinack Farm business show workers are on the verge of mutiny after several promises to make the contributions went unfulfilled, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.

One staff member reportedly said in an email there would be a mutiny if the super commitments were not honoured.

"This guy's supposed to be a billionaire, so why can't he pay people what they're due?" a staffer said.

"There's a lot of anger and frustration amongst the staff."

The Australian Taxation Office is believed to have launched an investigation into the claims.

Federal law requires employers to make super contributions at least every three months.

Patinack Farm's workers' pay slips still show the super payments but no money is arriving in their funds.

Last week newspapers reported that Mr Tinkler tried to sell his racing and breeding interests to a sheik from Qatar for $200 million but was unsuccessful.

The Newcastle Knights owner now reportedly plans to sell his 350 racehorses though Gerry Harvey's Magic Millions business.

The electronics retailer is believed to have given Mr Tinkler around $20 million in advance to help his cash flow.

Mr Tinkler's fortune was estimated at $915 million earlier this year but in a sign of his apparently unfolding demise he was unable to raise $28.4 million last week to honour an obligation to buy a stake in coal firm Blackwood Corp.

While it seems that Mr Tinkler has struggled to raise funds or sell his horseracing business recently he is far from becoming a pauper.

He still holds $778 million of shares in mining firm Whitehaven but the stock’s value has declined from $1.2 billion only four months ago.

http://finance.ninemsn.com.au/newsbusiness/8518897/billionaire-accused-of-not-paying-workers-super

Whilst not specifically footy related, the financial position of Tinkler plays a significant role for the Knights financials. Should this be seen as simply an oversight by a billionaire to his mideons or something more concerning?

 

[macavity]

Yes.

 

[cram]

Yes.

Agree

 

[Yosh]

Stocks are volatile... Did the company take a hit or is it just the usual up and downs of the stock market?

 

[RABK]

Of some concern but not much. Tinklers worth has always been largely paper worth and although i can't say i follow his business empires going ons, if he is dipping his toes in numerous projects and ventures it's of no suprise he is running into liquidity problems, especially considering some of his investments have halved in value over the last few months.

The bank guarantee and member buyback means there is no need to slit wrists if Tinkler went completely belly up. Sure it wouldn't be nice but with a debt free, profitable, well resourced and membership supported club to run then some smart business and local newcastle people could continue the clubs move to becoming a powerhouse.

 

[Spot On]

It's not my money.

Tinkler is highly leveraged and keeps borrowing. Always has been a concern.

That said, if he gets what he wants with the Whitehaven deal it will all go away so who knows which way the cards will fall.

Wasn't there a 20mill bank guarantee if things went bad?

The SMH has been on him hard.

 

[Chicken_Hunter]

Stocks are volatile... Did the company take a hit or is it just the usual up and downs of the stock market?

Unfortunately I am a Whitehaven Shareholder. I bought in the stock @ 5.47 and again at around $4.90 to take advantage of a .50c special dividend after the merger with Aston Resources.

The stock surged on news that Tinkler was going to make a $5.20 per share bid to takeover Whitehaven. Tinkler currently owns 21% of WHC. This all happened about 6 weeks ago, and the stock has slowly declined from the $4.50 surge down to a close of around $3.60 today. The stock has dropped 40 cents in the last 2 sessions as I think people are getting out because of the recent news about Nathan Tinkler.

Financially, WHC is the biggest coal mining company in Australia and ticks all the boxes of a great company. It is my opinion that the volatility of Tinkler and the unknown factor about his finances is what is driving the price down.

My stock broking firm has WHC shares valued at around $6.50 - $7.00 a share.

Maybe I should have known better when my broker put me onto a company with a big interest in Nathan Tinkler. But at this stage they haven't put a sell on the stock, so hopefully it will come good. As I said, it is fundamentally a great company.

 

[Yosh]

Unfortunately I am a Whitehaven Shareholder. I bought in the stock @ 5.47 and again at around $4.90 to take advantage of a .50c special dividend after the merger with Aston Resources.

The stock surged on news that Tinkler was going to make a $5.20 per share bid to takeover Whitehaven. Tinkler currently owns 21% of WHC. This all happened about 6 weeks ago, and the stock has slowly declined from the $4.50 surge down to a close of around $3.60 today. The stock has dropped 40 cents in the last 2 sessions as I think people are getting out because of the recent news about Nathan Tinkler.

Financially, WHC is the biggest coal mining company in Australia and ticks all the boxes of a great company. It is my opinion that the volatility of Tinkler and the unknown factor about his finances is what is driving the price down.

My stock broking firm has WHC shares valued at around $6.50 - $7.00 a share.

Maybe I should have known better when my broker put me onto a company with a big interest in Nathan Tinkler. But at this stage they haven't put a sell on the stock, so hopefully it will come good. As I said, it is fundamentally a great company.

Sounds like a Buffett style investment to me! I haven't taken a look into it but solid financials and stock prices dropping purely due to bad press? If I was in Australia, I'd take a good hard look into it...

Could be Tinks playing around and kinda forcing the stock prices to drop before he buys out the company lol:crazy:

 

[Chicken_Hunter]

Sounds like a Buffett style investment to me! I haven't taken a look into it but solid financials and stock prices dropping purely due to bad press? If I was in Australia, I'd take a good hard look into it...

Could be Tinks playing around and kinda forcing the stock prices to drop before he buys out the company lol:crazy:

Bad press has been driving the entire stock market for the last 12-18 months. Only now is the market starting to not react to bad press coming out of greece and spain.
The market has also been reacting to the 'slow down' in China, as the press put it. Fact is that the slow down in China has been regulated on purpose by the Government, and has not been caused by them not needing to build any less. In turn this has effected all our minerals sector.
Look at RIO and BHP, 2 heavyweight stocks, who consitantly have awesome yearly reports. Their stock prices are running at very low PE ratios due to the market pricing them in at a very low price due to all the bad press.

Tinks couldnt be playing around with the stock price by selling off. Any large sell offs are reported to the market, this is a legal obligation. A 'Ceasing to be a substantial holder' announcement will be made to the market if this were the case.
Also, Tinkler can't just buy the company, there are 1,013,000,000 shares on issue. There are only around 1-5,000,000 shares traded daily for WHC, it would take a decade to buy the company just by trading shares every day. He has to lodge a formal takeover offer which then has to be accepted by the shareholders.

 

[Newie is God's Country]

It is naive to think Tinkler couldn't go broke. He is a market value billionaire with assets all tied up. Exactly why Tew was so dogged about the guarantee 0f 20 million.

 

[Nuffy]

The bloke has made his fortune going all in, every time.

That's his MO. It would be nice for him to consolidate and set aside a tidy sum before betting the farm each time.

That said it was reported in the AFR that he's worth $800M and has debts of $300M so he's still in good shape, but these types of stories tend to follow him around and its shoddy business to let pissant (in his context) issues such as super to nag away at his reputation.

When stories of unpaid super and inabilities to raise $28M to pay a standing commitment, then people get nervous.

 

[perverse]

A concern only for the panic it will cause amongst alarmists and emos. We have the bank guarantee... our future is more certain than it ever was pre-tinkler... even if he goes bust. That is all there is to it, our fate is not bound to our owners.

 

[Joker's Wild]

Should this be a concern? Yes. Would it spell the end of our club if Tinks cant afford the Knights anymore? No.

If we lost him as an owner it would set us back but it wont cost us the team

 

[cram]

What's peoples understanding of the 20mil guarantee? Is it that 20mil is available each year for the term of the agreement if something goes wrong?

 

[Alex28]

The Fin Review is still suggesting that there is "relative confidence" that the takeover of Whitehaven will still go ahead at $5.20 a share, so CH - you might break even yet. The share price is copping a hiding from short sellers more than anything. No doubt that market speculation that he won't be able to stump up the funds to takeover is also driving the price down.

We went into this knowing that he is asset rich, debt heavy and cash flow poor. The club has a safeguard in the Bank Guarantee - the Bank has no choice but to pay on that if we require it. We are sitting much better than Patinack and Bolkm contractors/employees.

Personally, I reckon he'll come out of all this OK. The takeover of Whitehaven will get through - and that is pretty important because then he has assets that are income producing rather than speculative gains. There is no doubt that his fondness of horses and property development seem to have disappeared and they seem to be much lower in level of importance in relation to providing funding. SMH and the Newcastle Herald are giving him a hiding for it at the moment. Clearly his eyes are on Whitehaven...

 

[Alex28]

What's peoples understanding of the 20mil guarantee? Is it that 20mil is available each year for the term of the agreement if something goes wrong?

$20 Million Bank Guarantee is a one-off - if it is in line with a normal Bank Guarantee we don't have to claim it all in one go (we could claim $2 Million and the value of the guarantee reduces to $18 Million). Mind you the minute we claim on it it raises alarms with the Bank in question...

 

[Elephant Hunter]

$20 Million Bank Guarantee is a one-off - if it is in line with a normal Bank Guarantee we don't have to claim it all in one go (we could claim $2 Million and the value of the guarantee reduces to $18 Million). Mind you the minute we claim on it it raises alarms with the Bank in question...

You're right it is a one off guarantee, however the contract that with HSG and the 'The Club' is that any money taken from the Guarantee must be replenished in the next financial year. So if we remove 2 mil under the terms of the agreement Tinkler is supposed to replace the money in the guarantee again. However how he would be forced to do so is pretty unclear.

The 20 mil also reduces to lower levels as his ownership continues and is disposed of after 10 years when all assets become the sole property of HSG

 

[Alex28]

If we need to claim on the guarantee, it would be pretty clear that he would not be in the position to replenish that guarantee. It would be absolute last resort.

 

[Ronnie Dobbs]

Tinkler won't go bust. But anyone he owes money to absolutely could if they are waiting on cold, hard cash.

 

[cram]

http://www.theherald.com.au/news/lo...ghts-jets-say-tinklers-committed/2651432.aspx

Read the last paragraph of this story it's explanation of the guarantee is alot different to why I thought it met?