BHP Billiton Withholds Bonus of CEO Andrew Mackenzie

LONDON—The board of BHP Billiton Ltd. scrapped the annual bonus of Chief Executive Andrew Mackenzie after a burst dam in Brazil killed dozens of people and contributed to the company's worst annual loss, the company said Tuesday.

Other senior executives will receive reduced bonuses, cut to varying degrees, for the year ended June 30.

Mr. Mackenzie was paid a salary of $1.7 million last year, which has been frozen since he took over the CEO position in 2013 and which remains 25% below the salary of predecessor Marius Kloppers.

Mr. Mackenzie had recommended to the board that his bonus be withheld as the company posted a net loss of $6.39 billion for the 12 months through June. It was the first loss at the group level since the company was formed in 2001 through a merger of Australia's BHP Ltd. and U.K.-based Billiton PLC. Before that, BHP last posted a full-year loss in 1999, also at a time of weak prices.

The loss includes $7.7 billion in charges, of which $2.2 billion were related to the November dam failure at the Samarco iron ore venture that it jointly owns with Brazil's Vale SA. The resulting flood killed 19 people, destroyed villages and polluted more than 400 miles of rivers before spewing into the Atlantic Ocean. The net loss also includes $4.9 billion in impairments related to its U.S. onshore energy assets and slumping commodity prices.

The company will disclose further details of its remuneration package in its annual report in a couple of weeks' time.

Write to Alex MacDonald at alex.macdonald@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

August 30, 2016 12:55 ET (16:55 GMT)

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