TwiggyFest: Hundreds party with Andrew Forrest in the Pilbara
Twiggy arrived at Fortescue’s 20th anniversary party riding a massive dump truck and waving a giant flag before joining Jimmy Barnes on stage.
Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest has marked the 20th anniversary of his iron ore giant Fortescue with an extravagant celebration in the middle of the Pilbara.
Some 700 VIPs and guests were flown into Fortescue’s Solomon iron ore mine from around Australia for the event, with Forrest himself arriving at the party standing atop one of the mine’s huge dump trucks and waving an oversized Fortescue flag while AC/DC’s Thunderstruck blasted across the venue.
What unfolded over the next few hours was a Festival of Forrest as the mining magnate dialled up the Australiana to maximum, revealed a yet-to-be-announced Fortescue board appointment, and revelled in the success that so many in the early days of Fortescue thought would never come.
Speaking to the assembled crowd at the start of the festivities, an emotional Dr Forrest reflected on the toll his pursuit of Fortescue had taken on his family over the past 20 years.
“There has been some really tough times … I remember travelling with Nicola in our first early roadshows and we actually miscarried a child on that roadshow. It was really tough, and we just had to soldier on or the capital raising would not have occurred,” he said.
“I remember the early days, Sophia, Gracie and Sid, just kind of putting up with a dad who was hardly ever there yet still not throwing at me the resentment which children can, but welcomed me warmly back. And I remember in particular, the hugs and the kisses and the joy even though their Dad had missed out on such a chunk of their childhood.”
Forrest revealed that former CSIRO chief executive Larry Marshall would join the board of Fortescue, with the appointment expected to be confirmed to the ASX on Monday morning.
Dr Marshall joined Dr Forrest on stage, hailing his new boss as “the greatest Australian entrepreneur I’ve ever met”.
Several charter flights brought in guests from around Australia, while the Solomon airstrip looked like something more typically seen at Davos given the number of private jets on the tarmac.
The diverse list of attendees included Eddie Maguire, fellow billionaire Alex Waislitz – who was stopping in on his way to Bali – Multiplex heir Tim Roberts, and rival referendum campaigners Noel Pearson and Warren Mundine.
Former Fremantle Dockers coach and Clontarf Foundation chief executive Gerard Neesham, former treasurer Joe Hockey, WA’s recently retired agriculture minister Alannah MacTiernan, fast food king Jack Cowin, Ukraine ambassador to Australia Vasyl Myroshnychenko, and Kwasi Kwarteng, the man who spent 38 tumultuous days as the UK chancellor during the brief prime ministership of Liz Truss, were also all in attendance.
There was also a slew of current and former Fortescue executives and directors, including Nev Power and his former finance man Stephen Pearce, the executive who famously ditched Fortescue to take a senior role in the Mormon church, Peter Meurs, outgoing Fortescue Future Industries CFO Felicity Gooding, and founding father Graeme Rowley.
The guest list was noteworthy as much as for who wasn’t in attendance, as much as who was.
The most notable absentee, however, was Nicola Forrest.
The pair finally revealed their separation just over a month ago, and while the pair have said they remain on good terms, Nicola opted to send a video message rather than return from overseas for the event. Two of the Forrests’s children did the same.
Former Fortescue chief executive Elizabeth Gaines, who has now returned to the company as an executive director, was a late scratching. That may well prove to have more to do with boardroom and coaching tumult at the West Coast Eagles, which formally secured the wooden spoon on Saturday night, and where she is also a board member.
Video tributes also came in from former prime ministers Malcolm Turnbull and Kevin Rudd (the latter having apparently put to one side the role Forrest played in the anti-mining tax campaign that helped end his first stint as PM), former UK prime minister Boris Johnson, Queensland Premier Anastasia Palaczuk, WA Premier Roger Cook and – somewhat inexplicably – Kiss frontman Gene Simmons. Apparently Forrest and Simmons met through a mutual friend when the rock star was in Perth on tour and have struck up a friendship.
Rock icon Jimmy Barnes was the star of the night, belting out his hits plus a cover of Tom Petty’s ‘Running Down a Dream’, a song that has become Forrest’s unofficial anthem.
Forrest – dressed in a cravat, tan suit and RM Williams boots – joined Barnes on stage for the final bars of Working Class Man.
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