Kloppers to leave BHP, non-ferrous head Andrew Mackenzie to be CEO

BHP boss Marius Kloppers will step down in May, confirming speculation that his tenure at the world's biggest miner was under threat.

Marius Kloppers Andrew Mackenzie

BHP Billiton has confirmed long-running speculation the tenure of chief executive Marius Kloppers is coming to an end, announcing he will step down in May to be replaced by the company's head of non-ferrous miners and former Rio Tinto executive Andrew Mackenzie.

The announcement comes just weeks after Rio replaced former chief Tom Albanese with its iron ore head, Sam Walsh, and means all five of the world’s biggest miners have different chief executives, in place or lined up, to those that led them through the global financial crisis.

Calls for a change at the top of BHP came after Mr Kloppers failed to execute some big acquisitions, including that of Rio Tinto and Potash Corp and then lost his bonus over $US20 billion of US shale gas and oil acquisitions when gas prices subsequently tanked and writedowns were booked.

Big and ultimately abandoned growth spending plans, amid shareholder calls for more cash returns, also grated with investors.

But, partly because it abandoned the Rio tilt, BHP was by far the best-performing big miner since the start of the GFC, where its strong balance sheet left it the only one not forced back to the market to look for money to strengthen its books or repay debt.

South Africa-born Mr Kloppers also played the key role in removing the decades-old annually negotiated iron ore and coking coal benchmark pricing system, resulting in to date higher prices received for Australian iron ore miners.

Scottish-born Mr Mackenzie beat other internal candidates Marcus Randolph, Alberto Calderon and Michael Yeager and will be based in Melbourne.

Chairman Jac Nasser said Mr Kloppers had made an outstanding contribution to the company and praised the recent shale purchase.

“Marius and his team have delivered for shareholders, significantly outperforming our peers in terms of total shareholder returns,” Mr Nasser said.

“He drove new investments into next generation opportunities including US onshore gas and liquids and created one of the most valuable companies in the world.

“He leaves BHP Billiton a safer and stronger company.”

Mr Kloppers said the decision to retire after six years in the job was his.

"I am very proud of the achievements of our Company and our people. One of the first decisions I made when I became CEO was to bring Andrew into BHP Billiton, and I look forward to working closely with him, the board and the management team during the transition,” Mr Kloppers said.

Mr Mackenzie said he was honoured by the appointment and looked forward to building on Mr Kloppers’ “legacy, including continuing the focus on our strategy of owning and safely operating large, low cost, long-life assets diversified by commodity, geography an market.”

The leadership change was announced by BHP alongside a 58 per cent fall in its first-half profit to $US4.24 billion following a sharp fall in commodity prices. However, BHP tempered the weaker earnings with a 3.6 per cent rise in its interim dividend payout.