Palmer is very clever at killing his business interests. The only thing he did well was to make the original deal. I was involved in some of the original discussions regarding the property valuations in the early 2000's and it was generally regarded that Palmer's property was low value compared to others available at the time. But the Chinese thought they knew better, in particular regarding magnetite ore. Many of the Northern Chinese steelmakers did not know too much about the better quality Australian hematite ore.
