Fortescue’s share price bloodbath this year is because of a “fruitcake” US President Donald Trump and analysts who are “nervous nellies” about negotiations with Beijing’s iron ore buyer, according to boss Andrew Forrest.
Mr Forrest, Fortescue’s executive chair and major shareholder, took aim at President Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in a somewhat muddled response after being grilled at the company’s annual general meeting about why its stock has crashed.
Fortescue’s shares are down 34.5 per cent so far in 2026, while Pilbara iron ore rivals BHP and Rio Tinto are up 26.9 per cent and 2 per cent, respectively.
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Mr Forrest told shareholders that surging diesel costs, sparked by the US and Israel’s war on Iran, was eating into Fortescue’s profit margins as it begins to transition to a mining fleet powered by renewable energy.
“You can see why Trump cuts a deal with Putin desperately to try and say, ‘would you release a bit of diesel?’ And then turn around and blame President Zelensky of Ukraine for being invaded by Russia. Figure that out,” he said.
“But if you go and invade countries, and if you then blame them for invading them, then you know you’re dealing with a serious fruitcake, and that fruitcake happens to control your shareholder value, happens to control your ability to live normal lives and to send your kids to school.”
A market overreaction to Fortescue’s tense contract negotiations with China Mineral Resources Group — the Beijing-backed buyer of most of WA’s iron ore — was also to blame, Mr Forrest claimed.
While BHP and Rio Tinto recently cut deals with CMRG, Fortescue remains deadlocked in negotiations.
Last week, Fortescue warned of production cuts at its Pilbara iron ore mines if a deal is not struck by the end of this year.
But Mr Forrest on Wednesday said the market reaction was overblown and he took a thinly veiled swipe at BHP and Rio for accepting CMRG’s terms, which have not been made public but are said to involve iron ore price discounts.
“What BHP and Rio Tinto do is up to them. Fortescue’s always played the long game, and that has helped us,” he said.
“So we will be negotiating fairly properly with CMRG . . . That doesn’t mean that we need to cave into demands which we don’t think are in the best interests of shareholders, or in the best interests of our country.
“Those negotiations are ongoing and while they are then the nervous nellies in the analytical community, which have the short-term impact on the share price which you’re seeing now, will have an outsized influence on the share price, and you just ride through that.
“People who judge a company’s performance on the day-to-day stock price never win, so I just say, stay the course. The trend is your friend. This is still the highest performing company in Australia.”
Dr Forrest routinely says Fortescue is the best performing company, in terms of share price gain and dividends paid out, in ASX history.
Meanwhile, long-term Fortescue non-executive director Mark Barnaba was re-elected for three more years on Wednesday with a majority of more than 80 per cent, despite pushback from proxy advisory giants Institutional Shareholder Services and CGI Glass Lewis.
ISS and CGI Glass Lewis argued that Mr Barnaba — a Fortescue board member since 2010 — had been a director too long to be considered independent and his remuneration was too high.
