Potash plan to test BHP boss
Shareholders launch campaign against mining company over concern about entering fertiliser market
Melbourne — BHP’s plan to enter the potash market with a contentious $13bn project in Canada is adding to challenges facing the incoming chairman of the world’s biggest mining company. Ken MacKenzie, a 53-year-old board member who takes up the role in September, is on a global tour to meet investors in the wake of an activist campaign in recent months spearheaded by Elliott Management Corporation. Issues of concern for some shareholders include the producer’s US onshore oil and gas assets and its plans to accelerate the Jansen potash venture. Proceeding with Jansen risked a "severe strategic misstep", said Sanford C Bernstein analyst Paul Gait, as the new supply would risk depressing prices by delaying to about 2036 the ability of the potash market to work through overcapacity. Paul Singer’s Elliott went public in April with a campaign seeking asset sales and a corporate overhaul, claiming management decisions have eroded as much as $40bn in value. "Potash is going to be a big, big ...
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