BHP Billiton Limited (BHP):
BHP Billiton will ramp up its rebuttal of activist shareholder Elliott Associates by arguing that a separated petroleum division could be vulnerable to depressed oil and gas prices, because it would surrender the ability to defer production during price slumps and could be forced to load up on debt. Separating BHP’s US petroleum assets from its mining assets was one of the suggestions made by New York based Elliott this week, as part of a manifesto that claimed more than 48 per cent extra value could be created for Australian shareholders by collapsing the duallisted company structure, demerging US petroleum assets and creating an annual share buyback program. BHP has already dismissed the change of structure as being too expensive and potentially in breach of the foreign investment conditions that govern its merger with Billiton, and the company is expected to further explain in coming days why it believes the US petroleum assets are better-off being tied to BHP’s iron ore, coal and copper businesses.
Cimic Group Limited (CIM):
The nation’s largest construction group, CIMIC, has been lambasted by the Australian Shareholders Association for paying its top executives more than a million dollars each in cash bonuses despite several deaths during the year. Three CIMIC employees died during 2016. The deaths occurred on the company’s new Royal Adelaide Hospital project site in South Australia; on its Thiess Sangatta mine in Indonesia; and on its Liantang-Hueny Yuen Wai boundary control point project between China and Hong Kong. The short-term cash bonus plans for chief executive Adolfo Valderas and chief financial officer Angel Muriel Bernal have performance conditions linked to safety and other non-financial targets, which account for 20 per cent of the total amount that can be earned. The remaining 80 per cent is linked to financial targets.
IOOF Holdings Limited (IFL):
IOOF chief executive Chris Kelaher rates ANZ Banking Group’s for-sale superannuation and advice units a ‘‘red hot opportunity’’ but says the wealth management giant has no interest in the bank’s life insurance business. Mr Kelaher said the ‘‘planets are aligning’’ as the likes of Suncorp and ANZ, which is readying for a $4.5 billion auction of its wealth arm, look to offload parts of their businesses, giving IOOF an opportunity to pounce. ‘‘Our interest is in wealth,’’ he told The Australian Financial Review, clarifying that for the Melbourne-based company that includes superannuation and advice. ‘‘We’ll actively keep looking at life insurance, but that has its own capital requirements. That’s one of the things that is challenging the banks, so if we can stay away from that at the moment, that’s useful’’.
National Australia Banking Limited (NAB):
When former NSW premier Mike Baird begins his new role as National Australia Bank’s chief customer officer for corporate and institutional banking this month his most important metric will be the ‘‘net promoter score’’. And the level of disclosure around NPS is likely to increase, chief executive Andrew Thorburn said on Tuesday. The bank is planning on briefing institutional investors and regulators about the increased use of the metric, to ‘‘show them the link to results and growth’’. The net promoter score, originally developed by Bain, is created by a customer survey taken within a week of services being provided that asks them whether they would recommend the bank to a friend.
Rio Tinto Limited (RIO):
Rio Tinto’s decision to defer bonuses owed to former chief executive Sam Walsh is ‘‘reasonable’’, according to an influential proxy adviser, which has highlighted the different treatment handed out to two other executives embroiled in the company’s Guinea scandal. In a note to Rio’s London shareholders, ISS Governance gave its blessing to a ‘‘deed of deferral’’ struck between Mr Walsh and Rio that will see the company withhold payment of certain short-term and long-term bonuses until an investigation into the Guinea saga is complete and. in effect, clears Mr Walsh of any wrongdoing. ‘‘The company’s actions regarding former CEO Sam Walsh’s outstanding variable remuneration, in response to the investigation at Simandou, appear reasonable at this time, though future developments will warrant close attention,’’ said ISS in the note.
(Source: AIMS)
BHP Billiton will ramp up its rebuttal of activist shareholder Elliott Associates by arguing that a separated petroleum division could be vulnerable to depressed oil and gas prices, because it would surrender the ability to defer production during price slumps and could be forced to load up on debt. Separating BHP’s US petroleum assets from its mining assets was one of the suggestions made by New York based Elliott this week, as part of a manifesto that claimed more than 48 per cent extra value could be created for Australian shareholders by collapsing the duallisted company structure, demerging US petroleum assets and creating an annual share buyback program. BHP has already dismissed the change of structure as being too expensive and potentially in breach of the foreign investment conditions that govern its merger with Billiton, and the company is expected to further explain in coming days why it believes the US petroleum assets are better-off being tied to BHP’s iron ore, coal and copper businesses.
Cimic Group Limited (CIM):
The nation’s largest construction group, CIMIC, has been lambasted by the Australian Shareholders Association for paying its top executives more than a million dollars each in cash bonuses despite several deaths during the year. Three CIMIC employees died during 2016. The deaths occurred on the company’s new Royal Adelaide Hospital project site in South Australia; on its Thiess Sangatta mine in Indonesia; and on its Liantang-Hueny Yuen Wai boundary control point project between China and Hong Kong. The short-term cash bonus plans for chief executive Adolfo Valderas and chief financial officer Angel Muriel Bernal have performance conditions linked to safety and other non-financial targets, which account for 20 per cent of the total amount that can be earned. The remaining 80 per cent is linked to financial targets.
IOOF Holdings Limited (IFL):
IOOF chief executive Chris Kelaher rates ANZ Banking Group’s for-sale superannuation and advice units a ‘‘red hot opportunity’’ but says the wealth management giant has no interest in the bank’s life insurance business. Mr Kelaher said the ‘‘planets are aligning’’ as the likes of Suncorp and ANZ, which is readying for a $4.5 billion auction of its wealth arm, look to offload parts of their businesses, giving IOOF an opportunity to pounce. ‘‘Our interest is in wealth,’’ he told The Australian Financial Review, clarifying that for the Melbourne-based company that includes superannuation and advice. ‘‘We’ll actively keep looking at life insurance, but that has its own capital requirements. That’s one of the things that is challenging the banks, so if we can stay away from that at the moment, that’s useful’’.
National Australia Banking Limited (NAB):
When former NSW premier Mike Baird begins his new role as National Australia Bank’s chief customer officer for corporate and institutional banking this month his most important metric will be the ‘‘net promoter score’’. And the level of disclosure around NPS is likely to increase, chief executive Andrew Thorburn said on Tuesday. The bank is planning on briefing institutional investors and regulators about the increased use of the metric, to ‘‘show them the link to results and growth’’. The net promoter score, originally developed by Bain, is created by a customer survey taken within a week of services being provided that asks them whether they would recommend the bank to a friend.
Rio Tinto Limited (RIO):
Rio Tinto’s decision to defer bonuses owed to former chief executive Sam Walsh is ‘‘reasonable’’, according to an influential proxy adviser, which has highlighted the different treatment handed out to two other executives embroiled in the company’s Guinea scandal. In a note to Rio’s London shareholders, ISS Governance gave its blessing to a ‘‘deed of deferral’’ struck between Mr Walsh and Rio that will see the company withhold payment of certain short-term and long-term bonuses until an investigation into the Guinea saga is complete and. in effect, clears Mr Walsh of any wrongdoing. ‘‘The company’s actions regarding former CEO Sam Walsh’s outstanding variable remuneration, in response to the investigation at Simandou, appear reasonable at this time, though future developments will warrant close attention,’’ said ISS in the note.
(Source: AIMS)
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