BHP completes $5.2bn share buy-back, announces special dividend

BHP has successfully completed its off-market tender buy-back of BHP Group Limited shares, it announced on Monday.

The dual-listed FTSE 100 and ASX major miner said the final transaction size of AUD 7.3bn ($5.2bn) had enabled it to buy back about 265.8 million shares, which represented 8.3% of the issued share capital of BHP Group Limited, and 5.0% of the total issued capital of BHP Group Limited and BHP Group plc.

It said the final price for the off-market buy-back was set at AUD 27.64 per share, which was a discount of 14% to the market price of AUD 32.1387 per share.

In addition, the Board of BHP said it had determined to pay a special dividend of $1.02 per share, which would be paid to all BHP shareholders with an entitled registered holding as of 11 January next year.

The BHP board said the special dividend represented the residual $5.2bn of net proceeds from the sale of its onshore US assets not returned via the off-market buy-back, based on the reduced number of shares on issue of approximately 5,058 million following completion of the buy-back.

“We are pleased to have completed the off-market buy-back which, together with the special dividend, will deliver on our commitment to return the net proceeds from the sale of our onshore US assets to our shareholders,” said BHP’s chief financial officer Peter Beaven.

“Completion of this program will bring total cash returned to shareholders to $21bn over the last two years.”