Strikes, soaring costs and M&A await BHP’s new CEO

Mining06-25 07:42

Newly minted BHP CEO Brandon Craig faces a crowded in-tray as he takes mining’s top job on July 1, from threatened iron ore strikes and ballooning costs to a potential uranium push and a febrile M&A ...

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However, in the current environment, opportunities could still come knocking.\nBHP pursued Anglo American in the past two years but the London-listed miner opted instead to merge with Teck Resources. When that deal completes, the merged entity could become appealing again, depending on valuations, investors and analysts say.\n\nBHP is stuck on the sidelines of copper M&A frenzy it started\n\n“BHP and diversified peer Rio are expected to continue to target growth inorganically and organically. BHP’s valuation premium positions them well to pursue M&A,” said Baden Moore, an analyst with CLSA in Sydney.\nGlencore has made no secret of its ambitions to get bigger and allow major investors to exit but has been rebuffed, at least for now, by its number one target Rio Tinto, with talks subject to a six-month standstill.\nIn March, sources said that Glencore CEO Gary Nagle was hoping a surge in coal prices would help bring Rio Tinto back to the table for a fresh attempt at creating the world’s biggest mining company.\nWhile BHP has maintained a focus on growing its own assets, people familiar with Glencore’s thinking said a friendly approach for a conversation by the Swiss trader and miner couldn’t be ruled out.\nGlencore and BHP declined to comment on mergers and acquisitions.\nUranium ambition\nOne area for growth could be uranium, a business that BHP has recently commented on more than in the past. However, it sees achieving sufficient returns from the tiny market as a major hurdle, investors and analysts said.\nCraig told one investor that he would have a “really good look at uranium, but scale is hard.” The investor declined to be named because it was against company policy.\nUranium demand is expected to grow as power-hungry data centres boost the need for new generation capacity, including nuclear plants, while governments also look to diversify their energy sources in the wake of the Iran war.\nAnalysts point to potential from BHP’s Australian copper expansion, where the company already produces around 5% of global uranium supply as a byproduct from Olympic Dam, but it has so far ruled out any significant increase in uranium.\nBHP has been increasingly highlighting uranium as a “future facing commodity,” with an improving demand profile. CFO Vandita Pant said in May BHP regularly reviewed its core commodities, adding that it was “very comfortable” with its position in uranium at Olympic Dam.\nSpeaking at the Bank of America conference in May, Craig said he would consider making bolt-on acquisitions to secure growth, where they brought value.\nCraig, whose appointment in December surprised investors, may face departures among senior executives. CEO transitions typically spur around a third of top management to depart within a few years, a pattern BHP chairman Ross McEwan in March called a natural outcome of competitive succession processes.\nSenior executives, including CFO Vandita Pant and Australia president Geraldine Slattery, had been seen by some investors as leading contenders for the top job.\n(By Melanie Burton and Clara Denina; Editing by Veronica Brown and Sonali Paul)","kind":"highlight","is_publish_news":true,"is_publish_highlight":false,"is_publish_live":false,"is_publish_wemedia":false,"editions":null,"column":"","sentiment":"0","news_tag":"","news_rank":0,"isVideo":false,"video":null,"symbols":[],"gpt_button":0,"need_auth":false,"need_login_tip":false,"code":"91000000","status":"200"},"commentList":[],"isCommentEnd":true,"newsSizeData":{"likeSize":0,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"favoriteSize":0,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false},"APP":{"userAgent":"Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; ClaudeBot/1.0; +claudebot@anthropic.com)","isDev":false,"isTTM":true,"isLaohu8Offline":false,"tenantId":"TBGLOBAL","deviceId":"web-server-community-laohu8-v3","version":"4.44.0","shortVersion":"4.44.0","platform":"web","vendor":"web","appName":"ttm","isIOS":false,"isAndroid":false,"isTiger":false,"isTHS":false,"isWeiXin":false,"isWeiXinMini":false,"isWeiBo":false,"isQQ":false,"isBaiduSwan":false,"isBaiduBox":false,"isDingTalk":false,"isToutiao":false,"isOnePlus":false,"isHuaWei":false,"isXiaomi":false,"isXiaomiWebView":false,"isOppo":false,"isVivo":false,"isSamsung":false,"isMobile":false},"href":"/m/news/2646413388","isCrawlerRequest":true}