The world’s largest listed miner BHP shares its investment banking work around various firms, given the vast amount of transactional activity going on across its operations.
In the past, it’s had a close relationship with Goldman Sachs, but about three years ago, the two firms drifted apart, say sources, and this was evidenced by the Oz Minerals acquisition, where Goldman Sachs was not on the ticket for BHP.
That time around, it used Citi and Barrenjoey, while Macquarie was involved in its Australian coal mining transactions in the past two years.
This time, it’s UBS in its corner, which has a strong European presence and has carried out work with BHP before.
Jason Hutchings is the head of the private capital business for Europe at UBS.
The Swiss bank hired him from Citi in 2015 as its head of mergers and acquisition for resources infrastructure and power, and he is close to the BHP board and executives.
Barclays UK, which is a Barrenjoey shareholder, is also a dominant force in the British market.
Its London-based Global Metals and Mining head is Philip Lindop, and ex Deutsche Bank executive Stephen Pick heads mergers and acquisitions for the Europe, Middle East, Africa region and is also close to the Australian miner.
Sources say that a wide range of bankers have been pitching the idea of an Anglo American acquisition to BHP for some time, but BHP has fended some off, as it worked quietly with UBS and Barclays.
Anglo American, meanwhile, has a solid relationship with Centerview Partners, Morgan Stanley and now Goldman Sachs.
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