Check this out about Talbot - Just for a bit of fun read the...

Check this out about Talbot - Just for a bit of fun read the part about buying a new Global lear jet and the trip time to South America ! Falling in love with a stock....priceless


Fortunes made on black gold
James McCullough | April 22, 2008 12:00am
http://news.com.au//couriermail/money/story/0,26844,23576908-5015825,00.html Email article Printer friendly Text size+ - ShareAdd to DiggAdd to del.icio.usPost to NewsVinePost to FacebookWhat are these? DIGGING up wealth . . . Macarthur Coal boss Ken Talbot, a 'humble coal miner" who has built up a personal fortune of about $1.1 billion. INSET: Nathan Tinkler is considering selling a 10 per cent stake of Macarthur.
TWENTY-SEVEN years and about $700 million separate the two.
The youthful former electrician Nathan Tinkler, 31, has a personal wealth of about $400 million. His older peer in the lucrative coal game, Ken Talbot, 58, has a personal wealth of about $1.1 billion.

Despite these two differences the duo have a fair bit in common, most notably they made their money from the lucrative black gold that has been fuelling Queensland's economic growth – coal.

They also both now rank among the state's wealthiest individuals although Talbot in a sense is "old money", slipping into that exclusive club of multi-millionaires more than a decade earlier than Tinkler.

Talbot is fond of describing himself as "a humble coal miner" and Tinkler is a mining electrician who grew up in the NSW Hunter Valley.

In his first major media interview in July 1998 with The Courier-Mail, Talbot talked of starting a business venture with a blank piece of paper and "building things from there"

He built a large portion of his money quietly in the private coal sector 20 years earlier, culminating in the construction of the $60 million Coppabella Coal Mine in the Bowen Basin.

Talbot convinced the Chinese Government investment arm, Chinese International Trust & Corporation (CITIC), to take a 10 per cent stake in the project and he was on his way.

Three years later he floated his Macarthur Coal on the stock exchange, with the $1 shares yesterday worth $15.20.

He remains as a director of Macarthur but in recent years, with the advent of the Gordon Nuttall loans affair, he has retreated to the private sector and is now a substantial investor in numerous coal and iron ore companies around the globe.

He is spending so much time on planes he recently bought one of his own, a $50 million long-range Bombardier Global 5000 capable of flying from Brisbane to South America with one stopover.

Tinkler, on the other hand, is very much new money. In December last year he sold his Custom Mining Ltd group, which had two projects in the Bowen Basin, to Macarthur Coal for $275 million. That sale consisted of $65 million cash and about 22 million shares in Macarthur, worth at yesterday's closing price a cool $336 million on paper, making his net wealth an estimated $401 million.

He wasted little time spending it. Tinkler last year bought former motivation speaker Brad Sugar's palatial Pullenvale mansion for $5.2 million, a home complete with its own beauty salon, indoor teppanyaki grill, climate-controlled 3500-bottle wine cellar with seating for 12, theatre, resort-style pool, spa, gym and tennis court.

Talbot's 24 per cent holding in Macarthur was yesterday worth about $775 million but he also has another estimated $300 million in other share market and property investments.