‘ Miner’ change as the Big Australian reverts to BHP

THE Big Australian back, for its future.

BHP Billiton, the world’s biggest miner is rebranding, changing its name back to just BHP from this week.

The company is rolling out a $ 10 million advertising campaign that includes television ads and a new slogan – “Think is going Big” – to facilitate the change.

“We started working on this 18 months ago. We realised we had to start by telling people what BHP Billiton is and what we do,” chief external affairs officer Geoff Healy said.

The miner started out life in 1885 as the Broken Hill Proprietary Company, or BHP, and retained that name until its 2001 merger with Anglo- Dutch mining company Billiton Plc. The merged business continues to be listed in both London and Australia, while its shares are also traded in the US and South Africa.

The rebranding comes at an eventful time for the resources giant. Activist hedge fund Elliott Advisors has launched a public campaign over the last month, calling for a significant restructure of BHP Billiton’s operations by merging the UK and Australian entities into a single London- listed company and spinning off its US petroleum business.

BHP has also suffered financial and reputational damage from the November 2015 dam disaster at its Samarco joint venture in Brazil that killed 19 people.