Andrew Forrest

His father, grandfather (Mervyn), and great-grandfather (David) were all managers of Minderoo Station, which David had established in 1878 with his brothers, Alexander and John.

John, Alexander, David, and Mervyn were all members of parliament for periods, with John serving as Western Australia's first premier.

Forrest's early years were spent at Minderoo, located in the Pilbara region south of Onslow.

John Andrew Henry Forrest (born 18 November 1961), nicknamed Twiggy, is an Australian businessman.

He is best known as the former CEO (and current non-executive chairman) of Fortescue Metals Group (FMG), and has other interests in the mining industry and in cattle stations.

With an assessed net worth of A$33.29 billion according to the Financial Review 2023 Rich List, Forrest was ranked as the second richest Australian.

John Andrew Henry Forrest was born on 18 November 1961 in Perth, Western Australia, the youngest of three children of Judith (née Fry) and Donald Forrest.

Nicola's sister, Katrina, is the wife of David Thompson who was the leader of the New Zealand League of Rights in the early 1980s and the leader of the Australian League of Rights during the 1990s.

Forrest and David Thompson became friendly associates with Forrest appointing Thompson to a managerial role while he was on the board at Anaconda Nickel.

After graduating, Forrest worked as a stockbroker at the brokerage houses Kirke Securities and Jacksons.

After noticing that the demand for stainless steel was rising at 4 per cent a year, he quit stockbroking and got into nickel mining by founding Anaconda Nickel.

In 1991 Forrest married Nicola Maurice, daughter of Tony Maurice who was a major figure in the Australian League of Rights.

He became the founding CEO of Anaconda Nickel in 1993, after buying a stake in the company.

Minderoo was owned by the Forrest family until it was sold in 1998 by his father due to relentless drought and debt, but it was bought back by Forrest in 2009.

Forrest was educated at Onslow Primary School and through the School of the Air before moving to Perth to attend Christ Church Grammar School and then Hale School.

He stuttered as a child, which is how he came to develop a relationship with Ian Black, whose Aboriginal father, Scotty, became Forrest's mentor.

Forrest went on to the University of Western Australia where he majored in economics and politics.

However, in 2001 he was ousted as CEO when the company almost collapsed.

US bondholders received $0.26 for each dollar of debt in the restructuring.

The company's shares fell by 89% before it was taken over by Glencore and renamed Minara Resources.

In April 2003, he took control of Allied Mining and Processing, which had rights to iron ore in the Pilbara, and renamed it Fortescue Metals Group (FMG).

He remains a major shareholder of FMG, through his private company, The Metal Group.

One of Forrest's initial mines in the Pilbara produced and shipped $50 billion worth in iron ore, without ever providing compensation or receiving permission from the Yindjibarndi people to carry out mining on their land.

The operations in the area destroyed about 250 cultural and sacred sites.

In 2007, he took an interest and a directorship in Niagara Mining Limited, renamed Poseidon Nickel Limited, which had in 2006 acquired from WMC the Windara nickel deposits near Laverton, Western Australia.

Forrest described the Gillard government proposed Minerals Resource Rent Tax (MRRT) as "economic vandalism" and a "mad dog's breakfast" that would drive up foreign resource ownership.

He stated he would challenge it in the High Court as being unconstitutional, as it discriminates against states, and fails to appropriately capture big producers BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto.

WA premier Colin Barnett has stated the state government would back constitutional action, admitting the tax had been suggested to him as a "sovereign risk".

He was highly critical of the government's expenditure of $38M on an advertising campaign, that was not approved using the usual processes, as it had to "counter mining industry 'spin' about the resources super profits tax".

The former treasurer Wayne Swan said the big miners would pay at least A$2 billion tax, and wrote to the head of BDO Accounting, who modelled the claims Forrest used, noting they were "utterly unrealistic" and riddled with errors.

Treasury concurred that they would be unable to release the assumptions underpinning its forecasts, as they were based on confidential information provided by the big miners.

The Financial Review named him the richest person in Australia in 2008.

Fortescue made its first iron ore shipment to China in May 2008.

He had earlier stepped down as CEO of Fortescue Metals in 2011.

Much of the Forrest's philanthropy has been through either the Minderoo Foundation (focusing on education and Indigenous Australians) or the Walk Free Foundation (focusing on ending modern slavery), both of which he established.

Forrest has been accused of avoiding paying company tax, having revealed in 2011 that Fortescue had never paid company tax.

In 2013, Andrew and Nicola Forrest, his wife, were the first Australian billionaires to pledge the majority of their wealth to charity in their lifetimes.

Fortescue increased its capacity to 155 million tonnes per annum through a $9.2 billion expansion in 2014.

Since then, the company has grown to possess three times the tenements of its nearest rival in Western Australia's iron ore rich Pilbara region.

Fortescue holds major deposits at Mount Nicholas, Christmas Creek, Cloudbreak, and Tongolo.