UK and Australian shareholders in miner BHP (BHP) will vote on plans to unify both sets of shares this week, with the primary listing moving to Australia.
Assuming it can secure 75% approval at the meetings in both Melbourne and London, the company will exit the FTSE 100 on 28 January.
BHP confirmed this morning that shareholder meetings will take place on 20 January, with a virtual meeting planned for 6pm in Melbourne due to Covid concerns. UK meetings in London at 10am and 10.30am UK time.
Jefferies analyst Christopher LaFemina said: ‘We believe the overwhelming consensus view is that shareholders will vote for the unification. BHP shares will likely be under pressure after the results of the votes are disclosed (we expect approval) as passive and active holders will sell.’
GOOD NEWS FOR BHP’S RIVALS
The flipside according to LaFemina is that this is good news for the other FTSE 100 miners like Rio Tinto (RIO), Anglo American (AAL), Glencore (GLEN) and Antofagasta (ANTO) as after ‘BHP's delisting from the FTSE, we would expect active funds to gradually buy shares of other UK-listed miners as a result of a general rotation into mining equities over the course of this year’.
LaFemina added: ‘A smaller market cap of mining equities in the FTSE will coincide with the next move higher for mining share prices, in our view, as we may be in the midst of an ESG (environmental, social and governance) driven supercycle for commodities.’
