BHP has done it again. Brian Robins reports. Now, BHP is again embroiled in Australia's largest offshore merger, the planned deal with Billiton, which will see it cede full management control to Billiton's South African-born managers.
Australian companies have a dismal record of overpaying when they go shopping abroad.
Brambles was hit hard in the wake of the purchase of Ensco, an environmental processing firm in the US, only to suffer from regulation changes. It has been trying to offload Ensco since 1993, soon after it bought it. Similarly, CSR paid too much for its first round of US purchases, leaving its share price in limbo for the past decade. ANI stumbled when buying into Germany, which eventually cost it control of the company. But the implications of the BHP-Billiton deal dwarf those of other Australian moves abroad, due to BHP's broad sweep of local assets and operations, from steel through oil and gas, to coal.