Herd on the Terrace: Twiggy’s spinners bat away raid claims and Nicheliving boss in a happy snap

Oh to be a fly on the wall at Fortescue as executive chair Andrew Forrest shows belated awareness of his group’s tactics against former members of the so-called Fortescue Family. Forrest’s public attitude to the litigation was revealed on Wednesday after lawyers working for long-time lieutenant Michael Masterman shed a little light on 19 days of spy work on two former Fortescue scientists and their families. For this we can be grateful to Element Zero’s barrister Chris McMeniman — headline-grabbing claims about private investigators “following people to Kmart, sifting through mail” and various other activities ahead of raids on the family homes of Bart Kolodziejczyk and Bjorn Winther-Jensen. Perhaps it is due to Fortescue’s external lawyers Davies Collision Cave fighting this action in Sydney, but the giant iron ore miner and green metals hopeful’s people in Perth seemed slow to grasp the seriousness of what had gone down. As media reports broke last week based on a short affidavit hinting at the extent of Fortescue’s spying game, the listed company’s spin doctors released a statement full of virtuous humbug. While dodging questions about spying on the families and Element Zero’s premises in Malaga, this statement jibbered about Fortescue’s “ongoing success” as a “first mover” in efforts to “decarbonise our Australian iron ore operations”. What’s more, this anonymous “Fortescue spokesman” said the company invested “significant resources” in its intellectual property and was “committed to vigorously managing and enforcing its protection”. Putting this jibber into the mouth of an unnamed bloke was disappointing given the Fortescue army of spin doctors selling Forrest’s vision is now run by former private communications guru Nicole Hunter. Clearly the raids were initially outside the remit of the great man himself until more details emerged this week. Yet much of the humbug from the original statement was cut and pasted into another missive fired out of behalf of Forrest, which finished disclosing that the engagement of Fortescue’s external lawyers is “now under review”. Nothing like shooting the messenger. Finding a Niche Internet sleuths have delivered to The Bull’s desk a happy snap of NicheLiving boss Ronnie Michel-Elhaj rubbing shoulders with emeritus Dear Leader Mark McGowan at a 2021 knees-up. The two best pals chinwagged about real estate and the day’s news, according to Niche’s Linkedin — just as the building industry devoured a firehose of taxpayer largesse. But the market has turned and so have the tables. Niche is now refusing pesky “daily” media questions, copped a king hit in parliament, and has watched helplessly as a shopping trolley got elevated onto the top floor of a messy unfinished Alkimos home site. Rambunctious Ronnie declared in June 2020 that hopeful buyers “would need to act quickly” as a tsunami of hundred dollar notes emblazoned with Dear Leader’s face washed over the property market. “There will not be a lot of time to delay the buying process or take the usual time to act,” he reportedly said. Wild. If only the company took the same approach to the building process for their 100-plus unfinished homes. Monadelphous’ value in question Contractor Monadelphous was testing the patience of investors and journos alike on Tuesday, spruiking good news from energy giant Shell. Markets were told Monaz had extended its term at the giant Prelude LNG boat (barely) floating off the Kimberley coast — a tropical workplace beloved by employees and their union reps. But the “price sensitive” announcement was missing a vital number — the contract value. Hours later, Zoran Bebic’s team rushed out an aftermarket clarification revealing there was in fact “no material change” to the deal’s revenue compared to prior years. Righto. That sparked some digging by a thorough HOTT operative who discovered Monaz had been light on detail announcing the initial deal in 2015, merely declaring the contract has an “estimated value of more than $200 million”. One thing is clear — even multi-decade high inflation has not helped Monaz squeeze more drops out of the beancounters at Shell. Shares in the Vic Park crane operator lifted 2.4 per cent on Tuesday but retraced almost all of those gains in trading the next day. We can only hope the lads running the numbers in the Monaz engineering division are paying more attention to detail.