Ken Talbot

Who was Ken Talbot?

Ken Talbot was the principal shareholder and former CEO of the Macarthur Coal Ltd mining company. He was the only child of Norman and Nita Talbot. Talbot temporarily stood down as the CEO of the Macarthur Group Companies when he became embroiled in a controversy involving loans to controversial Labor MP Gordon Nuttall, who was jailed for corruption in July 2009. At the time of his death, he was a shareholder in Western Australian mining company Sundance Resources. His personal worth was estimated by Business Review Weekly at A$965 million.

On 19 January 2007, the Queensland Crime and Misconduct Commission charged Talbot with corruptly making payments totalling close to $360,000 to Nuttall. He was due to face court in Brisbane on 30 August 2010 on 35 charges relating to corruption.

On Saturday, 19 June 2010, Talbot was on a chartered flight between Yaoundé, Cameroon and Congo with fellow Sundance Resources executives Geoff Wedlock, Don Lewis, John Carr-Gregg, John Jones and Craig Oliver, when the plane went missing. Rescuers found the wreckage of a missing plane carrying nine passengers and two crew, suspected to be Talbot's aircraft, in Congo on 21 June. There were no survivors.