The news emerged from a filing with the Australian Securities Investment Commission.

While the sum paid was not revealed, a Tinkler Group spokesman told Crikey the stake, consisting of three of the four shares of the royalty held by private company Oceltip, was sold to Jefferies for a profit.

At one time, Tinkler was reported to have valued his share of the royalty, about $1 per tonne of coal, at around $25 million.

Jefferies reportedly loaned Tinkler $24 million in October last year, with the loan partly secured by his Oceltip stake and his Newcastle beachside mansion.

The Tinkler Group’s Aston Metals is under administration, with the empire unwound by a combination of high leverage, unprofitable forays into non-mining business and the coal industry downturn.

The Middlemount coal royalty was considered Tinkler’s last link with the Australian coal industry since he moved to Singapore.

Tinkler made his first coal fortune by buying the Middlemount deposit with business partner Matthew Higgins for $30 million with a $1 million deposit in 2006 and selling it to Macarthur Coal a year later for $265 million worth of its shares.

Peabody acquired Macarthur in 2011, while Higgins still owns the remaining Oceltip share.