Ann: CFO Update, page-86

Read what a wealthy investor in FMG has to say. The press is just having a field day re AF & FMG.

A wealthy US investor, John Tumazos, said Fortescue had “formidable” employees and the company’s “core is very strong”.

Mr Tumazos, an investor in the United States, is in the Greek Islands as he awaits payment of almost $78,000 in final dividends from Fortescue.

“Does it matter if Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck are CEO or chairman [in an era of autonomous machines and energy efficiency]?” he asked AFR Weekend.

“It amazes me how little Andrew is appreciated or respected for creating so much wealth and employment ... These attitudes focus on ridiculing [Fortescue]’s energy businesses, where it is too late to ridicule its iron ore successes”.

”Throughout Fortescue’s history I have found that the Australian sell-side analysts and financial press are very quick to piss in their face”.

”Over the past decade I have consistently recommended and owned [Fortescue] shares,” Mr Tumazos said, adding that he was not deterred by the exit of Ms Hicks – who had been in the top job for six months, and Ms Morris, who was chief financial officer for less than two months”.

”Sometimes in my own office we had to make a hire twice to find the right person, or we determined after a short time that some paper credentials were meaningless,” he said.

”In the case of Fiona leaving after seven months, she had not been there long enough to make a contribution or fully learn the business”.

”At the outset, I wondered if her career at Woodside, which is BHP-like, was an ideal prep for Fortescue [which] has a less bureaucratic or less traditional culture”.

”The departure of a 20-year veteran might concern me more.”Dr Forrest said on Wednesday that Ms Hick was not sufficiently aligned with Fortescue’s decarbonisation agenda. “So all I’d say is that Fiona was given a choice, and she made her own decision,” he said at the time.