Featured Image Credit: PA Images / Alamy Stock Photo
Topics: Australia
Joel Duggan
Andrew Forrest, nicknamed 'Twiggy', is an Australian businessman who has grown to become the country’s second richest person, right after Gina Rinehart.
Forrest started his business career in 1994 when he opened his first mining company, Anaconda Nickel, which would later be renamed Minara Resources.
In 2003, he founded the Fortescue Metals Group, which would become the world’s fourth largest iron ore producer and Western Australia’s largest tenement holder for its holdings in the Pilbara region.
Although he was replaced as CEO by Elizabeth Gaines, he remains the company’s chairman and majority shareholder.
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Furthermore, China’s growing appetite for meat and dairy has seen Twiggy expand his business ventures into cattle farming and agriculture.
Now aged 60, Twiggy has repositioned his companies toward sustainable energy, with the Fortescue Metals Group using its subsidiary, Fortescue Future Industries, to explore alternative energy sources.
Outside of business, Twiggy is known as a philanthropist.
In 2013, he became a signatory to the Giving Pledge, vowing to give a majority of his wealth to charity.
As of 2022, Twiggy has an estimated net worth of $17.1 billion, according to Forbes.
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Having started life as the son of Pilbara cattle station managers, Twiggy would go on to study economics and politics at the University of Western Australia.
Although he started his career as a stockbroker, his success as founding CEO of Anaconda Nickel urged him into the mining industry where he would make his fortune.
In 2022, Twiggy made a substantial $210 million investment in the Australia-Asia Power Link project, which plans to build the world’s largest solar plant, battery and submarine power cable to export electricity to Singapore and Indonesia.
Twiggy has also recently initiated a criminal complaint against Facebook, alleging that they failed to regulate against the usage of his image in cryptocurrency scams on their website.
He said in his legal challenge: “I am deeply concerned about innocent Australians being scammed through clickbait advertising on social media."
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In 2021, Twiggy purchased Lizard Island for $42 million, a Great Barrier Reef retreat located 250km north of Cairns.
This will join his multiple other properties, which include a Sydney crashpad, a Point Piper lakefront residence and even the Pangaea yacht, which he keeps registered in Montego Bay, Jamaica.