TIDMBLT
RNS Number : 6467W
BHP Billiton PLC
15 November 2017
Group Governance
16 November 2017
To: Australian Securities cc: New York Stock Exchange
Exchange JSE Limited
London Stock Exchange
BHP BILLITON LIMITED ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING SPEECHES
Please find attached addresses to shareholders to be delivered
by the Chairman and the Chief Executive Officer at BHP Billiton
Limited's Annual General Meeting today in Melbourne, Australia.
The meeting will be webcast at
https://edge.media-server.com/m6/p/36ogcfe2
As part of the Dual Listed Company structure of the Group, the
business to be conducted at the Annual General Meetings will be
determined by polls. The poll results will be released to the
market after the conclusion of BHP Billiton Limited's Annual
General Meeting.
Further information on BHP can be found at www.bhp.com.
Rachel Agnew
Company Secretary
BHP Billiton Limited ABN 49 004 028 077 BHP Billiton Plc
Registration number 3196209
LEI WZE1WSENV6JSZFK0JC28 LEI 549300C116EOWV835768
Registered in Australia Registered in England and Wales
Registered Office: 171 Collins Street Registered Office: Nova
South, 160 Victoria Street
Melbourne Victoria 3000 London SW1E 5LB, United Kingdom
The BHP Group is headquartered in Australia
BHP Billiton Limited Annual General Meeting
Speeches by Ken MacKenzie, Chairman
and
Andrew Mackenzie, Chief Executive Officer
16 November 2017
BHP Billiton Limited Annual General Meeting
16 November 2017
Ken MacKenzie, Chairman
Introduction
Good morning ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the 2017
Annual General Meeting of BHP Billiton Limited. My name is Ken
MacKenzie, and I am the new chairman of BHP. All of your Directors
are present.
I would like to start by acknowledging and paying my respects to
the Traditional Owners of the land on which we meet - the
Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation - and pay my respects to
Elders past and present and to any Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander people who have joined us here today.
Colin Hunter will conduct the Welcome to Country.
Thank you Colin.
Before continuing, I would like to introduce some of our
management team who are here today:
-- Andrew Mackenzie, CEO;
-- Peter Beaven, CFO;
-- Margaret Taylor, Group Company Secretary;
-- Mike Henry, President Operations Minerals Australia;
-- Geoff Healy, Chief External Affairs Officer;
-- Athalie Williams, Chief People Officer; and
-- Laura Tyler, Head of Geoscience.
It is a pleasure to be here with you in Melbourne, a special
place for BHP. Not only because Melbourne is home to our global
headquarters but because we have such a long and proud history
here.
Back in 1885, BHP was born as a public company on the Melbourne
Stock Exchange just up the road on Collins Street. From that humble
start, BHP has grown into a global company.
Victoria is also home to more than 150,000 shareholders who own
BHP shares directly. There are many more who own BHP shares through
their super funds.
It is a great honour to serve as your Chairman and to lead BHP's
Board, a role and a challenge that I am both humbled and energised
by. I don't underestimate the responsibility of this role - a
responsibility to you our owners, to BHP's people, local
communities and to governments and society.
I understand and appreciate BHP's rich history, quality assets
and contribution to global economic development. But what really
drew me to BHP, the single and most important factor, was that I
saw a company that makes a real difference. A company that makes a
contribution to so many people, communities and nations around the
world.
What I hope to bring to BHP is more than 30 years of global
executive experience, most recently from Amcor where I was CEO for
10 years. This experience has shaped my thinking on strategy,
capital allocation, culture and the creation of shareholder value.
I have learnt to navigate challenging external environments, and
enjoy working with global teams. I look forward to leveraging these
experiences and insights at BHP.
Since my appointment to BHP's Board in September last year, I
have visited many of our operations around the world. I've been
to:
-- iron ore operations in Western Australia;
-- coal operations in Queensland;
-- the Jansen Project in Canada;
-- our offshore and onshore petroleum operations in the United States; and
-- copper assets in Chile.
I was impressed. I saw strength and potential. While there was
much to be impressed by, three things stood out for me.
Firstly, the quality and expertise of BHP's people.
Hard-working, smart people who not only dedicate themselves every
day to making BHP a safer, more productive company, but who stand
out as leaders in their communities.
Secondly, the scale of opportunity at BHP's assets. The decades
of opportunity that can be realised through disciplined capital
investment, further productivity gains and embedding a culture of
continuous improvement. The concept of many incremental wins that,
together, are profound.
And finally (and this is really a combination of my first two
points), the opportunity we have to create value for our
shareholders.
It was helpful to see these opportunities with my own eyes.
However, I've also been listening.
During July and August this year, I met with over 100
shareholders across eight countries during what I called my
'listening tour'. During the tour, I heard investors' perspectives
on BHP across a broad range of topics - from the Company's
portfolio, through to our capital allocation approach and our
culture.
I heard positive feedback, but I was also challenged by
investors and heard their ideas and opportunities.
While the purpose of the tour was to listen, it was not a
polling exercise. It is the role of the Board as the Company's
stewards to listen and be responsive to our stakeholders. That is
the approach I believe in. But ultimately, it is up to the Board
and Management to choose the course it believes will best benefit
shareholders.
The listening tour gave me the confidence that the foundations
are strong. But there are areas where we need to sharpen our focus,
areas with potential to be better, and areas we can build on. We
must maintain a relentless focus on driving value and returns. We
must never lose sight of this commitment to our shareholders,
particularly in the context of the commodity cycle.
With a sharpened focus in some key areas, I am certain BHP will
continue to make a difference, remain competitive and create
shareholder value.
The gifts
Before turning to the future, I would like to recognise the
strong foundations we have today.
This Company is steeped in over 130 years of history, each
chapter contributing to the BHP of today. It has been built by
generations of boards and management teams.
One of the most recent chapters to highlight and pay tribute to
is the enormous contribution of my predecessor, Jac Nasser. Jac led
the Board for seven years. I thank Jac for his outstanding service
to the Company. His leadership and wise counsel will be missed, and
his legacy, including strong corporate governance, will be of
benefit for years to come. It is thanks to Jac, and those before
him, that we have been gifted with BHP's great assets and great
people.
But gifts like these, don't just happen. They take talent, drive
and hard work.
There is much your CEO, Andrew Mackenzie, and his leadership
team have delivered over the past five years to set BHP up for
success.
During this time BHP has become:
-- simpler: with a smaller portfolio of more focused assets in
the right commodities. This has been accomplished through
appropriate asset divestitures and the demerger of South32;
-- more efficient: with unit costs down 40 per cent and over
US$12 billion of annualised productivity gains embedded;
-- more disciplined: with the introduction of the capital
allocation framework and a 70 per cent reduction in annual capital
expenditure; and
-- stronger: with significantly less debt and more financial flexibility.
Andrew, I look forward to working with you and your management
team as you drive these outcomes even further.
My focus
As we turn to the future, while economic conditions in many
countries have improved, we continue to expect significant
volatility across various markets.
The transition of the three largest economies in the world will
provide the backdrop and context against which other market
developments will have to be considered. The US is now operating at
close to full employment. However, policy changes and the unwinding
of low interest rates remain the key driver of global uncertainty.
In Europe, the slow progress in Brexit discussions raises issues as
to how 'hard' the separation will be and how it will impact the
economic recovery.
Finally, it is important to recognise that the largest consumer
of commodities globally, China, has endeavoured to maintain growth
by addressing financial sector and credit market risks. The Chinese
government is likely to remain focused on protecting against
geopolitical and economic volatility to enable it to continue on
its growth path.
Over the longer term, we remain optimistic that a healthy global
trade environment will be supported by agreements that are both
inclusive and fair, as protectionist policies will only result in
lower productivity and less affordable goods and services across
nations.
Within this global economic backdrop, we believe BHP is well
placed to create value for shareholders, and to continue to make a
difference. We will do this by focusing on five key areas:
-- safety;
-- our portfolio;
-- prudent capital allocation;
-- world-class capability and culture; and
-- our social licence to operate.
The first focus area is safety. Nothing is achieved if it is not
done safely. Our commitment to operating safely without fatalities
remains unchanged.
Earlier in my career, I was touched by a safety incident that I
witnessed. I was on a production floor when just metres away from
me, a young apprentice had his hand crushed in a printing press.
The sight and the sound of that accident will stay with me
forever.
From that day forward, safety has never been about the numbers.
It is personal, it is emotional, and it is about people - our
co-workers, our contractors and their families.
For BHP, tragically, in the 2017 financial year one of our
colleagues, Rudy Ortiz Martinez was killed during planned
maintenance work at Escondida in Chile. Sadly, we have suffered two
more fatalities in the last few months.
In August this year, Daniel Springer died following an incident
at the Goonyella Riverside mine in Queensland and, one week ago, a
contractor at our Permian Basin operation in West Texas died at
work.
I offer my sincere condolences to the family, friends and
colleagues of these three men.
And while our total recordable injury frequency decreased this
year, it's not enough. These tragedies demonstrate that we must
redouble our efforts to protect the health and safety of everyone
who works at BHP. Nothing is more important. Andrew will share more
about this in a moment.
The second focus area relates to assessing BHP's portfolio.
It will be no surprise to you that the Board and management
review BHP's portfolio and options for the future on an ongoing
basis to make sure that every asset earns its way in the portfolio
against strict metrics focused on value and returns.
There is significant 'work in progress' in shaping the portfolio
in this way, perhaps most notably in shale, where in August we
announced that our onshore US shale assets are no longer aligned
with our long-term strategy and are therefore non-core. We are
actively pursuing ways to exit these assets for value.
The third focus area is capital discipline.
As an outsider looking in, I have seen the pro-cyclical nature
of the resources industry. The industry's and the Company's track
record over the past decade on capital allocation and shareholder
value creation has not been perfect.
The Board and management team have been working together to
learn from the lessons of the past and continuously enhance our
capital allocation processes. The framework established at the
beginning of 2016 was an important step towards these objectives.
The framework is a core process for everyone in the leadership of
BHP and how we create value. So to that end, Andrew and I have
agreed that we will form a working group made up of representatives
of management and the Board that will focus on strengthening the
processes supporting the framework. This will help us to further
review and improve our capital allocation activities and metrics,
as well as how we communicate our decisions transparently to the
market.
Our starting position is solid. We have a portfolio that
generates significant amounts of cash in almost all phases of the
commodity cycle.
We also have some clear parameters in place:
-- We have a well-established capital allocation framework to
determine how we best allocate cash.
-- In August we gave the market new clarity around net debt. We
announced that we would continue to strengthen our balance sheet
with a targeted medium-term net debt range of US$10 to 15
billion.
-- We also announced that we would maintain discipline and keep
capital and exploration expenditure below US$8 billion over the
next few years. As Andrew has previously stated, this is not a
'spend up to target'. We will continue to drive capital efficiency
in our aim to do it for less.
These parameters will make us sharper and more disciplined.
But we understand that for every capital decision we make, the
framework is only as good as the outcomes it produces. We are
determined to build a track record of disciplined decisions that
make the most of the hard won cash flow our assets generate -
decisions that will set us up to create maximum value for our
shareholders.
The fourth focus area is capability and culture.
Along with Andrew, I firmly believe culture is a genuine
differentiator and a source of competitive advantage.
As an example, there is the opportunity to further strengthen
our productivity capability and culture. As I touched upon earlier,
there have been significant productivity gains won over the past
five years which have delivered enormous rewards. This is a
substantial achievement.
However, 'better never stops'.
When continuous improvement is front of mind for all of our
people every day and regardless of swings in the commodity cycle,
this will be a significant lever to create shareholder value.
Having participated in a low-margin industry for many years, I
have seen first-hand the upside of this type of passionate and
relentless focus. To be lean and agile. The competitive advantage
that can be achieved from having productivity and continuous
improvement embedded in your culture.
We are also taking steps at the Board level to make sure we have
the right capability and culture. That the Board is
fit-for-purpose. We recognise that the Board needs to continue to
evolve to take into account the rapidly changing environment in
which we operate. So, we will undertake a review of the Board
skills and experience requirements during this financial year.
We take a structured and rigorous approach to Board succession
planning. We know that a mix of skills, background, knowledge and
experience is required. This needs to be supported by diversity of
geographic location, nationality and gender in order to effectively
govern the business.
Board refreshment was a topic of discussion during my meetings
with shareholders. Investors, just like the Board, believe regular
renewal is important but are also aware of the value corporate
memory brings to a board. In this context, a number of appointments
were made this year to make sure the Board is balanced and
fit-for-purpose.
Effective 1 October, Terry Bowen and John Mogford were appointed
to the Board as non-executive Directors. We look forward to their
insights and counsel given their extensive business experience. We
will have the opportunity to hear from Terry and John later.
The Board also had a number of retirements last year. John
Schubert, Pat Davies and, of course, Jac Nasser all retired from
the Board. In addition, Malcolm Brinded and Grant King decided they
will not stand for election. I would like to thank all of these
Directors for their valuable contribution and service to BHP and I
would like to wish them all the best for their future.
The fifth focus area is our social licence to operate. To 'do
the right thing' and fulfil our social contract.
Leadership with our social licence can create a strategic
advantage for BHP, and by extension, value for shareholders. Public
acceptance and trust are an imperative for BHP. Without it, we have
nothing.
If our host nations and communities do not trust us or do not
feel they benefit from our presence, we eventually lose our ability
to operate there - deservedly. Intense competition across borders
for jobs and investment, technological disruption and globalisation
all contribute to eroding the trust people have in big business and
institutions.
We know we need to do more than ever to achieve our social
licence to operate.
So, in many respects, our most valuable commodities are not iron
ore, coal, copper or petroleum. They are people, relationships and
trust. For BHP, and all companies, big or small, these factors are
an essential part of operations.
Nowhere is this more important than the response to the terrible
tragedy at Samarco. Before I joined BHP, I saw the response efforts
from the outside. I saw an unwavering commitment to do the right
thing.
BHP's first priority in the initial phases was to support
Samarco in the humanitarian response and ensure the safety of
people and the environment. The Company has now moved to a focus on
engaging with the affected communities to work with them to develop
the solutions they themselves have identified. We are determined to
learn from, and share, the lessons from this tragedy - not only
within our own company, but across the industry - in order to
improve tailings dam management standards globally.
Another example is our approach to climate change. Our climate
change strategy is tied to economic growth, so our sustained growth
is not possible without an effective response. In terms of our
actions, in 2017, we successfully achieved our ambitious five year
target to keep our absolute greenhouse gas emissions below our 2006
baseline while growing our business. Our new five year target is
also ambitious. We aim to limit 2022 greenhouse gas emissions at or
below 2017 levels.
In summarising how we think about our social licence, I will say
this: it is hard to measure the benefit of trust, but it is very
easy to measure the losses associated with not having it. For BHP,
our social licence is central to our business case and provides a
foundation for all value creation.
So it is in these five focus areas: safety, the portfolio,
capital discipline, capability and culture, and our social licence
to operate, that your Board and management intend to shape the
future for BHP.
As I said at the start, this Company has great strength and
potential. I have seen the quality and expertise of BHP's people. I
have seen the scale of opportunity at BHP's assets. These provide
the platform to create value for our shareholders, enhance our
social licence to operate, and to make a real difference in the
world.
Your Board, Andrew and I are genuinely excited for the
future.
Andrew Mackenzie, Chief Executive Officer
Welcome
Thank you, Ken, and welcome to the Annual General Meeting.
I would like to also acknowledge and pay my respects to the
Traditional Owners of the land on which we meet - the Wurundjeri
people of the Kulin nation - and pay my respects to Elders past and
present and to any other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
people who have joined us here today.
It is great to be back in Melbourne. As Chairman, Ken MacKenzie,
mentioned, BHP has a strong heritage here. In 1885 we held our very
first AGM in Melbourne, and today, more than 130 years later, we
continue to meet with you, our shareholders, to discuss what's
important.
And as we think of BHP's history, it would be remiss of me not
to pay tribute to our former Chairman, Jac Nasser, who has left us
with a remarkable legacy. I am thankful for Jac's leadership and
commitment to our Company for the past 11 years. I will miss him
and our friendship will endure.
And now it is with great excitement we welcome Ken MacKenzie,
who you have just heard from. Ken, it is a pleasure to welcome you
as our new Chairman.
I am excited to work with someone who has such extensive global
business experience and a reputation built on a deeply strategic
approach to maximise value for shareholders. I know that you have
the rigour necessary to effectively oversee our capital allocation
framework on behalf of our shareholders. You bring a track record
in manufacturing that we will leverage to bring the best of
manufacturing discipline into our business.
You have already provided me, the management team, and the Board
with valuable insights and made us see new possibilities for our
great Company. Possibilities I am certain will result in improved
performance and greater shareholder value.
Safety is our top priority
Before I talk about the year we have had, which on most measures
has been an exceptional one, I must start with a stark reminder of
why safety is, and will always be, our top priority.
Last year, I shared the news with you of 22 year old Rudy Ortiz
Martinez, who died at the Escondida mine in the first half of
FY2017. Tragically, we have experienced two fatalities this
financial year. A few months ago, Daniel Springer, only 30 years
old, died at Goonyella Riverside mine. He left behind his young son
and wife. And just one week ago, we suffered another heartbreak
when one of our colleagues died at our Permian Basin operations in
West Texas.
These fatalities have had a profound and permanent impact on
these men's families, friends and co-workers. To these people, I
offer not only my sincere and heartfelt condolences, but also a
commitment.
We are more committed than ever to make sure every one of our
people goes home safe. I commit to continue to define the most
important part of everybody's job, including mine, as making sure
our teams go home safe, healthy and well every single day.
It was encouraging to see us make some progress in safety last
year, with improvement in our TRIF performance. We have, and we
must continue to, reinforce the risks and critical controls to
protect everyone on our sites and at all our locations.
One way we are already doing this is through our Company-wide
Field Leadership program. At its heart, Field Leadership builds
conversation, recognition and observation of critical controls into
the daily routines of all our leaders. It means we see and
reinforce positive behaviours first-hand, can quickly recognise
when there are safety risks in our operations and can act to reduce
or eliminate them through intervention.
When we are more connected company-wide with each other, we can
and will be safer. It sounds simple, but by encouraging our leaders
to be visible, connected with each other and fully engaged in their
team's work practices, we can drive cultural change and improve
safety and productivity outcomes.
Our commitment to sustainability
In FY2017, we carried on our commitment to do what is right in
response to the Fundão tailings dam failure at the Samarco
operation in Brazil. Initially, the priority was to support Samarco
with the humanitarian response and protect the safety of people and
the environment. Now, we have moved from the emergency response to
a more structured and strategic approach to develop medium and
long-term solutions. Our commitment to help affected communities
has remained resolute since the dam failure in November 2015, and
we will use Our Charter values to guide our work with relevant
stakeholders and achieve the best outcomes for all involved.
We also use these values in our global approach to improved
sustainability. This financial year marks the beginning of our new
public five-year health, safety, environment and community targets.
We are proud of our achievements from the last five-year targets,
which formally concluded in June. We met or exceeded the vast
majority of benchmarks we set for ourselves.
But as we come into the next five years, we are determined to do
more. We have set even more ambitious goals to push and challenge
ourselves. We hope our leadership in this area will also push and
challenge the resources industry, and the world, to be safer,
sustainable and more connected to the needs of the community.
I am particularly proud of the long-term environmental goals we
have set, including our aim to achieve net-zero operational
greenhouse gas emissions in the second half of this century.
We have already established ourselves as a leader through our
transparent disclosure of our early actions in this field. By
putting these commitments in writing, you are able to hold us
accountable.
Market outlook and FY2017 financial performance
Now, to the market outlook and our financial results.
After a period of weak prices, several of our commodities are
currently trading above long-term price forecasts. Some challenges
do remain in terms of geopolitical uncertainty and protectionism,
which has the potential to hinder international trade, weigh on
business confidence and restrain job creation and investment.
However, our long-term view for markets remains positive.
Population growth and the rise in living standards will drive
demand higher for energy, metals and minerals for decades to come.
New demand centres will emerge where the key levers of
industrialisation and urbanisation are still immature, such as
India.
Last month's Chinese Communist Party Congress confirmed our view
of the Chinese economy. Housing and automotive demand will weaken.
Infrastructure will remain strong, reinforced by the Belt and Road
Initiative. The Communist Party's drive to improve safety and the
environment, and the efficiency of their industry, especially
steel, will result in high premiums for the superior quality of our
iron ore, coal and copper concentrate.
Against this backdrop, we are confident we have the right
assets, in the right commodities, through the steps we have taken
over the past five years to transform our Company.
We are simpler, with half the assets we had before and a
portfolio now focused on truly tier-one assets with common
characteristics. We are more efficient, through our productivity
agenda and further cost reductions. Over the past five years we
have delivered US$12 billion in productivity gains and reduced unit
costs by 40 per cent. We have reinforced the balance sheet to
provide us with flexibility in the good times, and protection and
opportunity when we face tougher conditions.
This deliberate focus on simplification and productivity has
allowed us to achieve great results in FY2017. Last financial year,
all our operated assets were free cash flow positive and delivered
a total free cash flow of US$12.6 billion, the second highest on
record. We reduced net debt by US$10 billion. We invested for the
future, and the Board determined dividends of US$4.4 billion, which
includes an amount of US$1.1 billion over the minimum payout
ratio.
Our plan to create value
The quest for value and returns is what drives us every day. Our
focus will not waver. It is not simply something we say we will do,
we have a plan to deliver.
We have achieved great success with productivity and laid strong
foundations to unlock improvements for years to come. With our
simple portfolio and operating model now in place, we can further
evolve our culture, embrace process discipline, encourage
innovation, and relentlessly pursue improvement.
It is this culture that can further set us apart from our peers,
when our people at all levels demand and push for better every day.
To systematically create a simpler, easier workplace, where people
can step up and grab an opportunity when they see it.
I have often been challenged by investors on whether safety and
productivity themselves should be a strategic driver for BHP - and
my answer is, absolutely. With the gains of the last five years
secured, there is much more to be won. I now have my sights set on
the next level of value creation through improved safety and
productivity over the coming years.
On the ground, we have some great examples of how this plays
out. In our Maintenance Centre of Excellence, we have centralised
our global truck data and can leverage that knowledge to better
predict when parts need to be replaced to reduce downtime. In
Australia alone, this has reduced projected costs by 20 per cent
across the remaining life of the fleet. With more to come as we now
roll this out globally.
As part of our productivity agenda, we will also make the most
of what we have through small, high-return, low-risk investments in
existing assets. We will invest in major projects in attractive
commodities to make sure we are positioned to succeed in the
long-term. Mad Dog Phase 2 and the Spence Growth Option both
represent capital-efficient, counter-cyclical investments.
In exploration, copper and oil are the focus of targeted
projects. We want to add valuable reserves to our Conventional
Petroleum business in the years to come and we are on the right
track following positive drilling results in the Caribbean and Gulf
of Mexico in FY2017. Also finally, our global Technology function
has worked hard to rapidly deploy high-value, capital-efficient
programs to unlock resources and lower costs even further.
At our FY2017 financial results, we also announced our intention
to pursue options to exit our quality shale acreage. This is
underway, but we will be patient as we examine all the options. We
know what the acreage is worth in our hands and we are prepared to
take time to best maximise shareholder value.
Culture, inclusion and diversity
These are bold plans and require more than just a CEO to stand
before you and tell you it will happen.
It needs a strong workforce to innovate, to think big, and to
safely, efficiently and capably deliver. I am confident our people
can do it, because they have proven time and again that they are up
to the challenge.
One challenge I gave them at this very forum last year was to
make a concerted effort to become more inclusive and diverse
through our ambitious, aspirational goal of gender balance by 2025.
The research told us this sort of cultural shift would make us
safer, more productive and more able to stick to our work plans,
and common sense told us that it was the right thing to do.
I am pleased to report that our people responded to the
challenge, as they always do. We have made more progress towards
gender balance in the last financial year than we have in the past
decade.
Women now make up over 20 per cent of our workforce, which is a
2.9 per cent increase in female representation in the last year. I
think it sends a strong message to all companies that gender
balance is achievable, it is beneficial and it is an absolute
imperative for workplaces in the 21st Century.
To achieve these results, we took some simple, practical steps
to make our workplace more attractive to all candidates. We
actively competed for more diverse talent and we reviewed our
systems to remove potential bias.
Importantly, we decided to focus on flexible work. We trust our
people and give them the freedom to work flexibly in a way that
suits them and their teams. Why? Because flexible work will
increase safety and productivity and make us more attractive to a
larger and more diverse group of people. And that is better for
business.
Our broader contribution, transparency and trust
Our commitment to inclusion and diversity is a strong and
tangible commitment to be a force for change in society. We are
using our platform to influence others. Because we know a company
of our size has a unique opportunity to really improve the world we
live in.
We have a responsibility to contribute to civil society. We have
a responsibility to have a voice, to be transparent, to be an agent
of positive change.
One way we do this is through our social investment program. We
know it has the power to change lives and we recognise we owe it to
our communities to think deeply about where, why and how we
invest.
In FY2017, we voluntarily invested US$73 million in social
projects across our host communities. And our footprint is much
bigger than just this. Our total direct economic contribution,
including our payments to suppliers, wages and employee benefits,
dividends, taxes and royalties for FY2017 was US$26.1 billion.
Here in Australia, BHP is one of the largest taxpayers. Last
year we made US$3.8 billion in payments to Australian governments,
with an effective tax rate of 34.5 per cent, or 46.1 per cent when
you include royalties.
We are enormously proud of the value we generate. We are proud
of the relationships we build. We know that when we truly listen,
trust, show openness and compassion, collaborate and take time to
foster relationships, the outcomes can far exceed our expectations.
We know that to build trust with the communities in which we
operate, we have to do this consistently.
We must act sustainably in every decision we make, and we must
stand up as an example of the positive contribution that well-run
and responsible companies can make to society.
Conclusion - a call to think big
In conclusion, your Company is in strong shape because our
people have made bold decisions and backed it up with decisive
action.
We are committed to maximise cash flow, sharpen capital
discipline and improve value and returns. We will chase the
opportunity to create value for you at little cost and low risk.
Our committed, inclusive and diverse workforce will be key to these
plans. A workforce committed to the safety of their colleagues, the
wellbeing of their community, the resilience of our environment and
the strength of our Company.
The past financial year has taught us many things, but
especially this - the world needs people who think bravely, think
creatively and bring the best of themselves to what they do. It
needs people who think big.
BHP is well-positioned for the future thanks to our former
Chairman's outstanding legacy and our new Chairman's exciting
vision for the next decade.
Together with the Board and my management team, I look forward
to FY2018.
The Chairman then conducted the formal items of business.
This information is provided by RNS
The company news service from the London Stock Exchange
END
AGMEAFFSFAKXFAF
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 16, 2017 02:00 ET (07:00 GMT)
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