WILL historians of the future murmur about the great corporate Midas of the early 21st century, a man enriched beyond imagining because everything he touched turned to iron ore?
His name is Andrew Forrest.
Everyone who doesn't know him calls him Twiggy.
On Thursday, investors swelled the value of Twiggy's stake in his Fortescue Metals Group by almost $1 billion and brought him within cooee of bypassing Frank Lowy as Australia's second richest man.
That was Thursday.
Yesterday, Twiggy's fortunes ballooned further. Before shares in his Fortescue Metals Group were placed in a trading halt, Twiggy saw the value of his roughly 102 million shares rise another 4.8 per cent to $6.54 billion.
On the BRW Rich List Twiggy was fifth behind James Packer, Frank Lowy, Richard Pratt and Gina Reinhart. Now it's anyone's guess who is at the top.
Packer's moves in the gambling sector have done nothing but erode his wealth, which stood at $7.25 billion last May.
The PBL share price has come off, as has the price of his NASDAQ-listed Melco PBL entity. And there's been a $390 million budget overrun for his Macau casino project.
Twiggy and Lowy may well be neck-and-neck for the top spot.
That was before Fortescue shares came out of the trading halt and fell 4.4 per cent, slashing Twiggy's 35 per cent shareholding to $5.9 billion.
Still, Chinese demand for iron ore is going to continue flat out, so Twiggy's paper wealth will increase again. |
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