Ho Ching resign
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Ho Ching resign
- Thread starter Black Swan
- Start date
Cheap & good , never mind the year...2009 vintage!
You guys outh there, no good!..see what you have done!, Ass loon woMAN, now STEP DOWN!!
then STEP UP to..............
coming to a GLC near you! ha ha ha ha:phttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/2932546/Business-profile-The-resourceful-Goodyear.html
Business profile: The resourceful Goodyear
Last Updated: 11:58PM GMT 19 Feb 2006
Previous1 of 2 ImagesNext Chip Goodyear: ?Cutomers have offered us money under the table for supply contracts?
BHP Billiton's chief executive is revelling as his company cashes in on the commodities boom, writes Topaz Amoore
Chip Goodyear is feeling, well, chipper. In the space of half an hour, he uses the word fantastic - "faiayan-tastic", in his Texan twang - no fewer than seven times.
His company, BHP Billiton, is awash with cash. The world's biggest diversified mining company can't scrape natural resources out of the ground quickly enough to satisfy global demand, particularly from China.
It's lunchtime on results day and Goodyear, a well-groomed and noted health-nut, is having a celebratory glass of Coke after announcing first-half profits up an impressive 48 per cent to $6bn (£3.4bn).
"It is a great time to be in resources," he glows. "You look at the business over the past 30 years and it's been in continual decline. No one wanted to go into it. Now, the world really has changed."
In 2002, Billiton 's sales to China were worth $371m; in the latest half year they surged to $2.95bn - or about 16 per cent of total sales. All Goodyear's work force really need to do, it seems, is to carry on shovelling.
"China, India, other parts of the developing world, see this century as their century," Goodyear says, "their opportunity for economic development. We go to China and drive down the freeway and every apartment-block window will have an air-conditioner. Faiayantastic. Aluminium, steel, copper - wonderful.
"You buy one of those units every five years but you turn it on every day. And we get both sides, as an energy producer as well as a metals producer."
In the abstract, BHP Billiton is a dirty, muscular, mining company. Goodyear sees it entirely differently: to him, it's all about people - a view that's in tune with his relaxed, bottom-up management style. This chief executive likes to eat in the company canteen and roam the office talking to junior members of staff, finding out what makes people tick. "You get more by doing things face-to-face," he observes.
Although based in Melbourne, Goodyear, 47, travels for more than half the year. You might crave the Air Miles but wouldn't necessarily envy the itinerary as he tours assets as far-flung as Colombia and Pakistan.
"What do I find common to every place? The world is full of people who just want to do better for their kids," says Goodyear, whose son and daughter are aged 12 and 11.
"BHP Billiton is an essential part of economic development and often that leads to people having a better way of life. You can't get out of bed without resources. Copper in your alarm clock, stainless steel in your tap, aluminium in your fridge.
"China still has 800m people living in a rural environment. The objective is to move 500m into an urban environment over the next 50 years. Those people will be moving to a higher level of productivity and income, and they'll all consume resources."
Global warming and the exploitation of natural resources are, he acknowledges, a "big, big issue. If you go to the Chinese and say: 'Oh you shouldn't buy the air conditioner because it will increase global warming', they'll say: 'You have one; why can't I have one?'"
People say they're committed to environmental reform when in reality they're not, he feels. "My sister, a limousine liberal, she'll sit and say: 'Gee, resources companies are damaging the earth,' and then hop in her car and drive off…"
Goodyear is happy talking about other peoples' lives. He's less forthcoming about his own. This much we know. His ancestors were lumber barons; the rubber pioneers were more distant forbears. He is the son of an oilman who worked for Exxon for 43 years. Goodyear was born in Connecticut but attended high school in Texas.
From there he went first to Yale, where he read geology and geophysics, and then to Wharton business school. He worked briefly for Mobil but his career really began in earnest in investment banking with Kidder, Peabody. He joined Billiton in 1999 as finance director after a spell at Freeport-McMoRan, the natural resources group.
As a result, Charles W Goodyear IV (his son, Charles, will be the fifth-generation) is an accomplished chameleon: comfortable on Wall Street but able to talk the same language as oil rednecks.
So his upbringing - was it all stetsons and tickets to the Oil Barons' Ball? Was he part of the Bush social scene?
"Aw, I don't know about being part of any Texan oil family," he mumbles.
"What I will say about Houston is that it's meritocratic. People don't care where you come from. You drill a well and might be worth millions of dollars, or it might be a dry hole and there's no stigma to that."
I feel as if I'm drilling a dry hole myself. Each time I break ground with a question about Goodyear's background or family, hoping to find out how he came to be running a $100bn company (he was offered the chief executive's role by phone while skiing in Sun Valley), he returns instead to the topic of creating "long-term shareholder value".
"He's ultra-focused," agrees one analyst who has dealt with Goodyear since he joined Billiton as finance director in 1999. "Always has been. It's banker reserve - don't give too much away; the company's bigger than the man. He's happiest talking about the company."
That seems true even now that BHP Billiton is implicated in a scandal related to the United Nations' deeply discredited Iraqi oil-for-food programme. An Australian inquiry has established that in 1995, BHP provided $5m worth of wheat on credit to Iraq to secure oil exploration rights. The debt was allegedly hidden in inflated wheat contracts given to the programme.
The loan itself was not large - slightly smaller, in fact, than the $5.1m Goodyear was paid in salary and bonuses last year. But he is said to be "furious" about the potential harm to BHP Billiton's reputation. Goodyear says, without hesitation, that he's prepared to fire anyone found guilty of wrongdoing.
Bribery and corruption, I suggest, must be an occupational hazard. "One of our guys came to me a year and half ago," Goodyear replies. "There was an opportunity, something he'd worked on with the team for some time. The president's brother, or son, wanted essentially a free carry on the project. I said: 'Well, it's clear. We can't do this one.' He said: 'Yeah, I know, but it's really tough because it's sooo good.' And I said: 'That's what makes it tough. But you read our charter. There's no question'.
"Customers have offered money under the table for supply contracts. It's reported to us and the money is given back. Our people know what's right and wrong."
His concern seems to be based not so much on ethics as commerce. "Any transgression goes round the world at the speed of light on the internet and it impacts the value of a $100bn company. If the market, our constituencies or communities lose confidence in us, it has a big impact. We closely protect our relationships and reputation. Political leaders look at Fly-By-Night Inc, maybe their brother-in-law owns a piece of it …but they recognise that we will deliver a successful economic and social outcome."
There is speculation that Goodyear might step down in the next two years. He made a throwaway remark to an analyst that he'd like his children to be educated in the US; what's more, two BHP Billiton executives are apparently being groomed as potential successors.
One can see that Goodyear might crave a more testing management challenge than watching his vast workforce dig holes in the ground and counting the profit.
He is discomfited, too, when I ask why, under his contract, he can leave the company with only three months' notice: how does that square with building long-term shareholder value? I'm sure his stammered explanation about adverse tax implications is true but it lacks conviction: he could do with a bit more rehearsal.
What is certainly true is that when Goodyear became chief executive, his stated ambition was to build a $180bn company. In which case, bring on the diggers. There's still a way to go.
Publishers wishing to reproduce photographs on this page should phone 44 (0) 207 538 7505 or e-mail [email protected]
Business profile: The resourceful Goodyear
Last Updated: 11:58PM GMT 19 Feb 2006
Previous1 of 2 ImagesNext Chip Goodyear: ?Cutomers have offered us money under the table for supply contracts?
BHP Billiton's chief executive is revelling as his company cashes in on the commodities boom, writes Topaz Amoore
Chip Goodyear is feeling, well, chipper. In the space of half an hour, he uses the word fantastic - "faiayan-tastic", in his Texan twang - no fewer than seven times.
His company, BHP Billiton, is awash with cash. The world's biggest diversified mining company can't scrape natural resources out of the ground quickly enough to satisfy global demand, particularly from China.
It's lunchtime on results day and Goodyear, a well-groomed and noted health-nut, is having a celebratory glass of Coke after announcing first-half profits up an impressive 48 per cent to $6bn (£3.4bn).
"It is a great time to be in resources," he glows. "You look at the business over the past 30 years and it's been in continual decline. No one wanted to go into it. Now, the world really has changed."
In 2002, Billiton 's sales to China were worth $371m; in the latest half year they surged to $2.95bn - or about 16 per cent of total sales. All Goodyear's work force really need to do, it seems, is to carry on shovelling.
"China, India, other parts of the developing world, see this century as their century," Goodyear says, "their opportunity for economic development. We go to China and drive down the freeway and every apartment-block window will have an air-conditioner. Faiayantastic. Aluminium, steel, copper - wonderful.
"You buy one of those units every five years but you turn it on every day. And we get both sides, as an energy producer as well as a metals producer."
In the abstract, BHP Billiton is a dirty, muscular, mining company. Goodyear sees it entirely differently: to him, it's all about people - a view that's in tune with his relaxed, bottom-up management style. This chief executive likes to eat in the company canteen and roam the office talking to junior members of staff, finding out what makes people tick. "You get more by doing things face-to-face," he observes.
Although based in Melbourne, Goodyear, 47, travels for more than half the year. You might crave the Air Miles but wouldn't necessarily envy the itinerary as he tours assets as far-flung as Colombia and Pakistan.
"What do I find common to every place? The world is full of people who just want to do better for their kids," says Goodyear, whose son and daughter are aged 12 and 11.
"BHP Billiton is an essential part of economic development and often that leads to people having a better way of life. You can't get out of bed without resources. Copper in your alarm clock, stainless steel in your tap, aluminium in your fridge.
"China still has 800m people living in a rural environment. The objective is to move 500m into an urban environment over the next 50 years. Those people will be moving to a higher level of productivity and income, and they'll all consume resources."
Global warming and the exploitation of natural resources are, he acknowledges, a "big, big issue. If you go to the Chinese and say: 'Oh you shouldn't buy the air conditioner because it will increase global warming', they'll say: 'You have one; why can't I have one?'"
People say they're committed to environmental reform when in reality they're not, he feels. "My sister, a limousine liberal, she'll sit and say: 'Gee, resources companies are damaging the earth,' and then hop in her car and drive off…"
Goodyear is happy talking about other peoples' lives. He's less forthcoming about his own. This much we know. His ancestors were lumber barons; the rubber pioneers were more distant forbears. He is the son of an oilman who worked for Exxon for 43 years. Goodyear was born in Connecticut but attended high school in Texas.
From there he went first to Yale, where he read geology and geophysics, and then to Wharton business school. He worked briefly for Mobil but his career really began in earnest in investment banking with Kidder, Peabody. He joined Billiton in 1999 as finance director after a spell at Freeport-McMoRan, the natural resources group.
As a result, Charles W Goodyear IV (his son, Charles, will be the fifth-generation) is an accomplished chameleon: comfortable on Wall Street but able to talk the same language as oil rednecks.
So his upbringing - was it all stetsons and tickets to the Oil Barons' Ball? Was he part of the Bush social scene?
"Aw, I don't know about being part of any Texan oil family," he mumbles.
"What I will say about Houston is that it's meritocratic. People don't care where you come from. You drill a well and might be worth millions of dollars, or it might be a dry hole and there's no stigma to that."
I feel as if I'm drilling a dry hole myself. Each time I break ground with a question about Goodyear's background or family, hoping to find out how he came to be running a $100bn company (he was offered the chief executive's role by phone while skiing in Sun Valley), he returns instead to the topic of creating "long-term shareholder value".
"He's ultra-focused," agrees one analyst who has dealt with Goodyear since he joined Billiton as finance director in 1999. "Always has been. It's banker reserve - don't give too much away; the company's bigger than the man. He's happiest talking about the company."
That seems true even now that BHP Billiton is implicated in a scandal related to the United Nations' deeply discredited Iraqi oil-for-food programme. An Australian inquiry has established that in 1995, BHP provided $5m worth of wheat on credit to Iraq to secure oil exploration rights. The debt was allegedly hidden in inflated wheat contracts given to the programme.
The loan itself was not large - slightly smaller, in fact, than the $5.1m Goodyear was paid in salary and bonuses last year. But he is said to be "furious" about the potential harm to BHP Billiton's reputation. Goodyear says, without hesitation, that he's prepared to fire anyone found guilty of wrongdoing.
Bribery and corruption, I suggest, must be an occupational hazard. "One of our guys came to me a year and half ago," Goodyear replies. "There was an opportunity, something he'd worked on with the team for some time. The president's brother, or son, wanted essentially a free carry on the project. I said: 'Well, it's clear. We can't do this one.' He said: 'Yeah, I know, but it's really tough because it's sooo good.' And I said: 'That's what makes it tough. But you read our charter. There's no question'.
"Customers have offered money under the table for supply contracts. It's reported to us and the money is given back. Our people know what's right and wrong."
His concern seems to be based not so much on ethics as commerce. "Any transgression goes round the world at the speed of light on the internet and it impacts the value of a $100bn company. If the market, our constituencies or communities lose confidence in us, it has a big impact. We closely protect our relationships and reputation. Political leaders look at Fly-By-Night Inc, maybe their brother-in-law owns a piece of it …but they recognise that we will deliver a successful economic and social outcome."
There is speculation that Goodyear might step down in the next two years. He made a throwaway remark to an analyst that he'd like his children to be educated in the US; what's more, two BHP Billiton executives are apparently being groomed as potential successors.
One can see that Goodyear might crave a more testing management challenge than watching his vast workforce dig holes in the ground and counting the profit.
He is discomfited, too, when I ask why, under his contract, he can leave the company with only three months' notice: how does that square with building long-term shareholder value? I'm sure his stammered explanation about adverse tax implications is true but it lacks conviction: he could do with a bit more rehearsal.
What is certainly true is that when Goodyear became chief executive, his stated ambition was to build a $180bn company. In which case, bring on the diggers. There's still a way to go.
Publishers wishing to reproduce photographs on this page should phone 44 (0) 207 538 7505 or e-mail [email protected]
Resign because something very wrong happened !
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