It’s goodbye Billiton as BHP returns to roots

Three months after the Brazilian dam disaster, BHP CEO Andrew Mackenzie went to the town that gave the miner its name.

BHP CEO Andrew Mackenzie at Broken Hill

Nearly three months after BHP Billiton chief Andrew Mackenzie began dealing with the harrowing reality that a tailings dam failure at one of its half-owned mines in Brazil had killed 19 people, the mining boss made the first official trip in decades by a BHP board member to the NSW outback town that gave the miner its name.

The miner, originally known as the Broken Hill Proprietary company, stopped mining the famous Broken Hill lead, zinc and silver lode in 1939, and Mr Mackenzie called his January 2016 visit there a pilgrimage.

At a private gathering at the famous Silverton Hotel, 20km west of Broken Hill and where documents incorporating BHP were first signed in 1885, Mr Mackenzie signalled that a rebranding to help restore trust in the miner, officially announced today, was already high on his agenda.

When asked by a town elder why the company persisted in including Billiton, the South African, London listed company it acquired in 2001 in its name, Mr Mackenzie replied that people might be hearing a lot less of that name in the future.

Those comments have been confirmed today as BHP Billiton, or BHP as it would like to be now known, will launch a $10 million television campaign in Australia today, featuring the miner’s own people and the slogan “think big”.

In time, the plan is to also remove Billiton from the official company name.

The rebranding is partly an attempt to tackle a growing loss of public trust in the corporate world and, more specifically for BHP, public relations damage after a fatal dam collapse at one of BHP’s Brazilian mines killed 19 people.

It also comes after BHP has shed nearly all of the assets it acquired in a 2001 scrip takeover of South Africa’s Billiton.

Mr Mackenzie’s statements back up those from BHP’s external affairs head Geoff Healy that the campaign has been 18 months in the making and is completely unrelated to a recent push by New York hedge fund Elliott Management to restructure the company and give it a primary listing in London. “This has been going on for months,” Mr Healy said ahead of today’s launch, stressing filming had started in January on the company’s first major ad campaign in 30 years.

“The timing is good, but good, bad or indifferent, Andrew’s request to me and the team was get it done, this is important for our future.”

Eighteen months ago was when the tailings dam at BHP’s half-owned Samarco iron ore operation in Brazil burst, sending a huge wave of mining sludge into the valley below, all but wiping out the town of Bento Rodriguez and polluting the Doce river system.

So BHP saying there has been 18 months of planning for its first major branding campaign since the late actor Bill Hunter introduced television audiences to “the Big Australian” more than 30 years ago, shows that the Samarco disaster was a key driver.

But Mr Healy stresses it was not the only one and that the company has known for decades it needed to get on the front foot against evaporating community trust in big corporations around the world.

The prominence of BHP’s Broken Hill heritage in the two television advertisements and a three minute video for social media show the impression the NSW outback town had on Mr Mackenzie when he visited 16 months ago.

The slogan in the advertisements, produced by Melbourne advertising agency Big Red, is “think big” — something Mr Healy says the company’s founders did in Broken Hill.

“It’s about going back to recognise our roots,” he said.

“There is a real symbolism to recognising the roots of this company, which lie in Broken Hill.”

The launch comes less than two weeks after Scott Morrison weighed in on how important the miner is to Australia, providing support in the face of a campaign by New York hedge fund Elliott Management for structural change, including giving BHP a main listing in London. The Treasurer said he would block any such move and that directors could face criminal charges if they tried it.