'Ordinary bloke' is richest man in Oz

A promise to turn rust-red iron ore into gold for investors has transformed Andrew Forrest from a "penny stock" mining entrepreneur with a dream into Australia's richest man, worth more than $7 billion.

After a decade promoting everything from nickel mining to underground desert oceans, Forrest appears to have hit paydirt with iron ore.

In December, he surpassed media tycoon and close friend James Packer as Australia's wealthiest person.

"Iron ore is the new gold," says Eagle Mining Research analyst Keith Goode.

Worldwide, iron ore prices have been rising for the past six years straight, increasing a whopping 65 percent in 2008 alone, thanks to a growing global appetite for imported ore.

Besides amassing a fortune that would make even his Perth neighbor Alan Bond blush, the former stockbroker has become one of Australia's most generous philanthropists.

He has donated millions of dollars to fight poverty and alcoholism among Aborigines, many of whom he employs digging mines and laying railroad tracks hundreds of miles across the outback.

Forrest, 47, has said he would rather give his billions away than die rich and is loathe to shoulder his three children with the "burden" of his fortune.

Forrest was traveling and unavailable to comment for this article, spokesman Paul Downie said.

From just a few pennies in 2003, stock in Forrest's Fortescue Metals Group galloped to more than A$60 ($55) before splitting 10 for one in December to enable a loyal legion of mostly small investors a chance to afford more shares.

Nicknamed "silver tongue" in the mid-1990s after convincing a group of US bond holders to put up $420 million in debt funding to build a company making nickel metal in the outback using rejigged Cuban technology, Forrest has already sold 45 million tonnes of ore to some of China's biggest steel mills.

Forrest, who battled a bad stutter as boy and who spent summers as a jackeroo, or cowboy, near aboriginal outposts, portrays Fortescue as a David to the international Goliaths Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton, who have long cornered Australia's ore reserves but are now struggling to keep pace with demand.

"Forrest is the quintessential Aussie bloke, just as happy to say g'day to the garbage man as the prime minister," says Tim Treadgold, a mining commentator in Perth. "He just happens to be the richest Aussie bloke."

Agencies

(China Daily 02/26/2008 page17)