BHP expected to earn $Aust600M

Press, 20 July 1984, Page 8

BHP expected to earn $Aust600M

NZPA-AAP Melbourne Australia’s biggest company, BHP, will present final proof next week that it has mirrored the general economic recovery, with an annual profit of up to $640 million. BHP last year proved to be the “corporate battler” of Australia’s major companies with a 32 per cent slump in profit to $244.76 million. The latest result for the 12 months to May 31 will be released next Friday. The size of the profit turnaround will be best reflected in the steel division which last year dragged BHP’s profit down to its lowest point since 1978. But 12 months later the steel division is expected to be the second-largest money spinner behind the oil and gas division.

The steel division lost $144.25 million in 1982/%3 but with a successful policy of increasing productivity and higher local demand the oldest division is now tipped to earn between $BO to $lOO million. Analysts from Melbourne’s three major broking firms told AAP that they expected BHP to report net earnings for 1983/84 of between $6Ol million to $640 million with each of the company’s five divisions increasing their contributions. For its part, the oil and gas division will continue in its role as the financial mainstay of BHP and is expected to increase earnings to about $4OO million from $299 million last year, with an enormous rise in Bass Strait output. An analyst from Potter Partners said that BHP

would report a net profit of $6Ol million while Peter Woodford, the head mining analyst at J. B. Were and Son, said profit would be $631 million. The chief analyst at A. C. Goode and Co., Tony Moody, forecast that BHP would report a $640 million profit in 1983/84. Although there is debate over the future health of the Australian economy, market analysts believe that BHP will continue its upward spiral in the coming years to position itself in the middle range of international companies. BHP has indicated for the last 18 months that it is no longer just an Australian company but a true multinational through the huge take-over of the mining group, Utah International, and its search for a United States oil explorer.