Mining billionaire and high-profile politician Clive Palmer, the seventh richest Australian for 2022, almost doubled his wealth in the past year.
Palmer, 67, moved up one spot in The Australian’s The List: Australia’s Richest Top 250, with an extraordinary $8.59billion windfall taking his fortune to $18.35billion.
Gina Rinehart was once again crowned Australia’s richest woman with the mining magnate now worth an eye-watering $32.64billion, just ahead of Fortescue Metals’ Andrew Forrest.
Palmer, who is the face of the United Australia Party and owns mining company Minerology, was the beneficiary of a surging nickel price, which climbed $9,000 a tonne a in a year to $25,000 in early March.
Prices for the metal, which is used to make stainless steel and electric car batteries, then exploded in response to the Ukraine crisis. It jumped to $100,000 a tonne forcing a halt to trading in London.
Mining billionaire and high-profile politician Clive Palmer, the seventh richest Australian for 2022, almost doubled his wealth in the past year. He is pictured with Bulgarian-born wife Anna
Palmer, 67, jumped from eighth on the 2021 list to seventh this year, with an extraordinary $8.59billion windfall taking his fortune to $18.35billion. He claims to own the world’s largest collection of classic cars
Palmer disembarks from his luxury superyacht Nancy Jean in Darling Harbour in Sydney
The mining mogul’s spending habits mirror many of those of Australia’s rich and famous – with superyachts, private jets, fancy cars, golf courses, mansions and resorts – with one big difference.
Palmer, who recently overcame Covid-19 after three ambulances were called to his Gold Coast home, has spent hundreds of millions on his political aspirations.
He is understood to be spending an estimated $100million of his extraordinary wealth on the upcoming federal 2022 election.
Palmer won the Queensland seat of Fairfax in the 2013 federal election and was was absent from Parliament more than any other MP in the 44th Parliament and retired from politics in 2016 but resurrected the United Australia Party in 2019.
He is also believed to have bankrolled the campaigns of 151 UAP candidates in the upcoming federal election with a total bill, including advertising costs, of around $100million.
Palmer said the cost was ‘only a couple of months work’ for him.
He is standing as a senator in the election.
Palmer also spent tens of millions in a failed bid to win a seat in the 2020 Queensland election and previously spent $60million on the 2019 federal election.
Aside from politics and mining, his passions have included launching a replica of the Titanic and collecting cars.
Since 2012, Palmer has owned Blue Star Line, whose $500million mission is to launch a new version of the notorious ocean liner, the Titanic, which hit an iceberg and sunk in 1912.
He claims to own the world’s largest collection of vintage cars, worth up to $400million.
The collection, officially valued at $230million, includes 100 Rolls Royces and Bentleys, 120 Mercedes and 22 vintage Ferraris.
Palmer claims to own the world’s largest collection of classic sports cars
Clive Palmer poses for a photograph in front of Jeff the dinosaur at the Palmer Resort in Coolum on the Sunshine Coast in 2012
Recently he was accused of buying Hitler’s Mercedes-Benz 770 Grosser Offener Tourenwagen – but denied it on twitter.
‘I’d probably get $400 million if I sold them but I won’t, because I’ve been collecting since I was younger,’ he told news limited.
Palmer also owns four private jets, two superyachts (one is 56 metres long and worth $100million) and a vast property portfolio – including gold courses and two luxury resorts.
Those are the Coolum Resort in Queensland and Club Med in Tahiti.
Palmer has pumped hundreds of millions into Australian political campaigns in the past decade and is running for the senate in the 2022 election under the United Australia Banner. He is funding 151 candidates at an estimated cost of $100million
He owns four Queensland golf courses and lives in a spaceship-style 3075 square metre mega-mansion at Sovereign Islands on the Gold Coast, which was listed for sale for $24million in 2021.
He also owns properties at Paradise Point, Mermaid Beach, Broadbeach Waters, Southport, Palm Beach, Fig Tree Pocket, in New Zealand and in Sofia, Bulgaria.
His second wife, Anna, was born in Bulgaria.
Palmer’s wealth is partly-based on the $620m in mining royalties he receives every year from Chinese resources company CITIC, whom he has been in business with – and locked in ongoing court battles with.
CITC is an iron ore producer and plans to increase production at its Sino Iron magnetite mining and port project in Western Australia – from which Palmer is expected to reap huge returns.
Minerology also has massive iron ore reserves in the Pilbara ranges.
Palmer also has coal holdings but publicly he is best known as a high-profile, pro-‘freedom’, anti-Covid lockdown politician.
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