BRANDON Craig, appointed CEO-elect of BHP Group this week, has signalled that organic growth will take precedence over acquisitions as he prepares to take the helm of the world’s largest miner on 1 July.
Speaking at a media conference in Melbourne, Craig said any deal would need to be “very special” to compete with the company’s existing project pipeline, which includes the Escondida copper mine in Chile and the Jansen potash project in Canada. He used the word “discipline” at least eight times during the briefing, said Bloomberg News in its take on the mining group’s appointment.
Craig, 53, joined BHP in 1999 and has spent the past two years running its Americas operations, overseeing an expansion of copper output that saw the metal contribute more than half of group profit for the first time in the six months to December. “His skill set is tightly aligned with where we believe the future growth sits,” Marc Jocum, senior product and investment strategist at Global X Management told Bloomberg News.
Mending relations with China’s state-run iron ore buyers is among his most pressing tasks, following a dispute over long-term contracts that led Beijing to instruct steelmakers to halt certain purchases from BHP. Craig said management would travel to China within weeks.
“Iron ore was always their cash cow and that’s not going to go away, but copper will likely become an ever-increasing portion of BHP’s earnings,” said Sam Konrad, investment manager at Jupiter Asset Management.
