Palmer postponed

Poor old Clive Palmer must be racking his brain trying to think of whether he’s broken a mirror, walked under a ladder or run into a herd of black cats.

Every time the mining billionaire gets close to launching the long-awaited float of his mining company Resourcehouse on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, something goes wrong.

First he was supposed to float the thing in late 2008, but that never eventuated. A plan to float in late 2009 or early 2010 was also pulled, partly because of global market jitters related to the Greek sovereign debt crisis.

Now fate has intervened again. Palmer was due to speak yesterday at a special investors lunch at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, in what would have been the launch of a month-long sell job for the latest Resourcehouse float.

But the lunch was cancelled on Friday due to jitters about the situations in Libya and Japan, and poor old Clive’s plans have been pushed back again.

The miner, whose fortune is valued at as much as $3 billion, just can’t take a trick. But what remains to be seen is whether this is a temporary setback or a bigger problem.

Certainly there’s a strong argument that this isn’t the time to push ahead with a float and it should be noted that another Australian Hong Kong hopeful, lithium producer Galaxy Resources, has also pushed its float plans.

Adding further weight to the argument that this is a temporary setback is the fact that Palmer has HKSE approval for the deal – as the situation in Japan starts to become clearer, Palmer should be able to get the investor roadshow moving again fairly quickly.

Reports in the Australian Financial Review suggest Palmer will remain in Hong Kong for the meantime to monitor the situation.

The reason the Resourcehouse float is so eagerly-awaited is simple – it will finally give us some insights in to exactly how much Clive Palmer is actually worth.

The fact that most of his assets are privately held or under development makes valuing him extremely difficult, as shown by the fact that Forbes magazine says he is worth less than $500 million, and BRW magazine says he’s worth more than $3 billion.

So we’re cheering for Clive to get his float over the line – let’s settle this debate once and for all!