BHP woos overseas investors

Press, 27 May 1985, Page 27

BHP woos overseas investors

NZPA-AAP Sydney Australia’s largest company, BHP, said it is seeking greater United States investment in the company to take the level of foreign ownership to just under 35 per cent. BHP assured business people and brokers in Australia that the company would always remain an Australian-based international resources firm with the luring of United States investors serving only to aid sharemarket investors. The managing director, Mr Brian Loton, said BHP would like to see United States investment rise to about 10 per cent of the issued capital from the current 1 per cent. Mr Loton said this would be a very good thing for BHP shareholders and still leave the level of overseas investment under the 35 per cent limit. He said the courting of private investors and fund managers in the United States had already begun to “broaden our shareholder base internationally and provide a wider and deeper market for BHP stock”. Mr Loton said BHP believed local ownership now stood at between 75 per cent to 78 per cent, with 12 per cent in the United Kingdom, between 9 and 10 per cent in New Zealand and 1 per cent in the United States. A senior company source said BHP would like to see the level of United States ownership as high as 15 per cent, with listing on the New York Stock Exchange as another way of improving the share price in the long term. The BHP board of directors

and divisional managers showed the company’s video presentation to the press and brokers in Sydney. This was used earlier in the month by Mr Loton and the finance head, Mr Geoff Heeley, in a five-city United States tour. The United States seminars, which are known as "roadshows” in the broking community, were held in conjunction with a large New York stockbroker, Morgan Stanley, which recently issued a favourable report of BHP and described it as one of the world’s premier resource groups. In the video, BHP was referred to as the “Big Australian” and as an “international mining, oil, and trading house”. It lauded BHP’s international activities through the multi-billion dollar Utah purchase and the take-over of a United States oil and gas group, Energy Reserves. Mr Loton later backed up the positive view of BHP and said the company was more than likely to post another record annual profit following strong profit rises in the first nine months of the current year. He also said the devaluation of the Australian dollar should further help our revenues and profit margins if it continues. The positive profit forecast by Mr Loton would not have come as a surprise to the broking community which has estimated that annual earnings in the year to May 31 would rise to about sAust72o million from last year’s previous record of ?Aust622 million.