Elisabeth Behrmann
BHP Billiton had set no timeframe to replace chief executive Marius Kloppers, who had delivered exceptional leadership throughout the commodity cycle, chairman Jac Nasser said yesterday.
The Financial Times said on November 7 that BHP Billiton had started looking for a successor for Kloppers, 50, who has led the mining company for the past five years. The process was at a preliminary stage and might take another 12 to 24 months, the paper said, citing people it did not identify.
“We have a management team that has performed exceptionally well over the last decade and particularly over the last five years,” Nasser said.
BHP Billiton rose 0.6 percent to A$34.21 (R316.07) at the close in Sydney yesterday. The stock has declined 0.6 percent this year, compared with a 5.2 percent drop in the shares of Rio Tinto, the second-biggest mining company.
Kloppers gave up his bonus for the year to June 30, after booking a $2.84 billion (R25.1bn) charge in August to write down the value of Melbourne-based BHP Billiton’s shale gas assets in the US. Nasser backed Kloppers as chief executive that month, saying the company was fortunate to have his leadership.
“We were able to continue to invest in a downturn in the global economy and we were able to continue to have attractive investments during that period,” Nasser said yesterday. “That just doesn’t happen by accident, that happens by good planning, it happens by having a very good sense of the strategy of the company.”
BHP Billiton worked with executive search company Heidrick & Struggles International to help assess the performance of its board of directors during the 2012 fiscal year.
“We develop talent internally and we always look outside. Right now we’re more concentrated on making sure the succession process works well and we’re developing all the talent we can inside the company,” Nasser said. – Bloomberg