By Peter Ker
BHP Billiton says the company it plans to demerge in 2015 will have global aspirations, despite bestowing it with a name that recognises its focus on the southern hemisphere.
The proposed company will be branded "South32", in a nod to the line of latitude upon which its major operations in South Africa and Australia are located.
South32 will be a $US26.7 billion collection of assets that generated a profit of $US738 million over the last six months and that will be delivered its independence with a spare $764 million in debt.Credit: Philip Gostelow
The new brand and its "yellow zest" coloured logo of "woven" perpendicular lines was launched on Monday evening, 16 weeks after the demerger was announced under the working title of "Newco".
The name and brand were chosen by a combination of employee suggestions and expert advice from creative agency Designworks.
The proposed chief executive of the new company, Graham Kerr, said an employee had suggested "32South" as the brand for the new company, and the name was ultimately honed to become South32 because test groups felt it sounded better.
"South32 is grounded in the southern hemisphere with our two regional centres, Australia and South Africa, linked by the 32nd parallel-south line of latitude. The name South32 represents the company's footprint and regional approach to managing its operations," he said.
"The views of our people are helping to shape our strategy and are being woven through the company. The ground up approach is important to us, so im particularly pleased that an employee suggestion was the basis for the name South32."
Mr Kerr said the subtle change from 32South was made because testing of the name suggested a change to South32 would be more popular, but the switch may also be linked to the fact that a Perth-based communications agency already exists under the name of "32 Degrees South".
Despite boldly attaching its brand to the southern hemisphere, Mr Kerr said the new company would not be prevented from growing its exposure to the northern hemisphere.
"The brand is reflective a little bit of our heritage and where we have been, it doesn't actually constrain where we are going to go. I've been very clear that South32 will have global aspirations and it is not is going to be constrained to the places that it currently operates," he said.
The company will be based in Perth and have assets in Australia, Brazil, South Africa and Columbia.
Mr Kerr would not name the fee paid to DesignWorks for their services, but he hinted it was less than $1 million
"It is fair to say the amount is not a huge amount," he said.
Designworks did not return calls on Monday, but the firm has previously worked on branding for Australand and Bank of Melbourne.
The company has registered several three-digit ASX ticker codes and settle on one of those in coming months.
BHP will present full documentation for the proposed demerger in March, with a shareholder vote scheduled to take place in May.