Forrest says Fortescue now back on track to future
Andrew Forrest calls it ripping off a bandaid quickly.
“The pursuit of great governance was prioritised over how these critical decisions might look in the media,” he said in an email to the Fortescue “team”.
But that look has been extremely messy – certainly not just in the media – as the whole market wonders just what’s going on underneath.
Andrew Forrest has long managed to balance innovation and discipline, and investors have reaped the rewards. David Rowe
Investors don’t like surprises or uncertainty and there have been Pilbara truckloads of both from Fortescue as a series of unsettling events last week compounded one another.
The shock announcement of Fiona Hick’s exit as CEO after only six months was immediately followed by that of Hick’s chosen CFO after an even briefer tenure.
The departure of Guy Debelle from the Fortescue Future Industries board aggravated the image of a company in management turmoil – an image Forrest now has to try to mend.
The FFI board, which is chaired by Malcolm Turnbull, has actually been relatively dormant for many months given its role has been superseded by the emergence of Fortescue Energy which is accountable to the main FMG board.
Market players expect it will soon be disbanded because it is largely redundant. But the timing of Debelle’s exit was another embarrassment for a company trying to reassure its staff and investors about the unexpected exit of the CEO.
And while the departure of a most temporary CFO, Christine Morris, after only three months came at the board’s request as part of the decision to “rip the bandaid off quickly”, it only added to external concerns about FMG’s management stability.
In the midst of this, Forrest gave an impassioned address about the dangers of
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