BHP owners pocket record dividend
BHP shareholders will pocket a record payout, the company announced this morning, bringing the total dividend to $6.7bn (£5.5bn).
The miner announced this morning that it would give shareholders an ordinary dividend of $1.33 per share.
However, the payout comes on top of a special dividend earlier this year, of $1.02 per share as the company decided to return $10.4bn to shareholders.
It came after BHP sold its oil fields in the Permian Basin to BP for $10.5bn last year.
Attributable profit grew 124 per cent to $8.3bn, the biggest in five years, while basic earnings per share rose 130 per cent to $1.603.
However, profit and dividend fell slightly short of expectations, sending shares in London down around two per cent to 1,746.2p.
“As a BHP shareholder you can’t be too disappointed. It’s been a great year for the company, they have made a lot of money,” Brenton Saunders at Pendal Group, a Sydney-based fund manager, told Reuters.
“That’s in a large part a function of commodity markets and less so a function of the specifics of managing and running a business like this.”
Chief executive Andrew Mackenzie said: “Higher prices and record production from several of our operations contributed to strong operating cash flows. We used that cash to invest in attractive growth projects, advance our exploration programs and increase returns to shareholders.”