Cow capers cripple former Fortescue boss Nev Power

Former Fortescue chief Nev Power in WA’s outback. Not a cow in sight.

Semi-retirement from corporate Australia can be a dangerous game.

Former Fortescue Metals Group boss Nev Power, who finished up at Andrew Forrest’s iron ore empire in mid-February, was a late scratching for his keynote address to the Association of Mining and Exploration Companies convention in Perth today.

Power, almost 60, sent through a note explaining he’d had a run-in with a cow on his cattle station and shattered a kneecap.

“For those wondering how the cow fared, it was delicious,” said Power, who after his seven years leading Fortescue has just signed up to be the chairman of Perth Airport.

Grisly.

And far from the bucolic life Power envisaged when he announced his Fortescue exit last September to spend more time in retirement “helping my son on the cattle station”.

It’s not the first bust up of a Fortescue-related leg out west.

In October 2015, Power’s then boss Forrest almost had his leg amputated after a horror incident in Western Australia’s Kimberley region.

The billionaire was hiking through the outback when he fell into a billabong and wedged his leg so wretchedly that amputation was considered.

As Forrest said after the fall, we shudder just thinking about it.