A leaked email from BHP Group Ltd (ASX: BHP) leadership accuses some staff are relying on luck rather than good management to deliver performance and returns.
BHP is a world-leading resources company, extracting and processing minerals (like iron ore and copper), oil and gas, and has more than 62,000 employees and contractors, primarily in Australia and the Americas. Headquartered in Melbourne, BHP has shares listed on both the ASX and London Stock Exchange (BHP Billiton Plc).
BHP’s Damaging Leaked Email
According to the Australian Financial Review, a team of BHP’s leadership have sent an email criticising performance across the company and have also docked employee incentives in some divisions.
The accuse the employees of relying on luck rather than good management to achieve the company’s recent strong shareholder returns. For example, the Vale dam failure has been a substantial cause of the increased iron ore price, rather than internal factors.
What’s the problem? Well, production is less than expectations and costs have gone up. BHP can’t control prices but it can control these other two factors.
In what some may view as a little harsh, the BHP leadership said that BHP’s share price and the large dividends have been boosted by external not internal events. Accidents and mishaps in its mining operations over the past 12 months mean BHP employees “should be smarting”.
The 20% cut from BHP’s short term incentive pool would have been more if based on the scorecard alone, not things that are in the control of employees like the iron ore share price and a fatality at a mine in Queensland. However, I’d bet the executive team are probably benefiting from the increase in commodity price – we shall see in the annual result.
This decision will apply globally and to all employees and could amount to tens of millions of dollars.
I think it’s good to keep employees accountable for performance within their division, but a lot of people would have had no control over some of the incidents that happened, yet their incentives are being reduced.
There are so many things that can go wrong at a commodity business, and they have no control over the price. Not a great business to own unless you can buy it at the low point of the cycle, which certainly isn’t right now.
I’d much rather invest in the reliable businesses in the free report below instead.
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