my silly brother, page-9

hanrahan

You must be joking refering to the merger of Billiton and BHP as some sort of success for Australian enterprise.

Billiton shareholders got 42% of the new BHPB shares, but the former assets of Billiton only provide about 25% or less of its current revenue and profits.

Billiton owned clapped out mines in risky locations in Africa and needed the merger. BHP had made a few mistakes at a time when commodity prices were very low. Silly Don Argus got convinced that the future of BHP was in Africa by Billiton. This was probably the biggest scam in recorded history prior to the current banksters scams.

For Oz companies see what happens when they try to takeover something of real value such as the fertilizer company in Canada for $40 billion. Canadian govt told BHPB to get stuffed and was heavily lobbied by the Chinese government to stop the takeover. Same goes if BHP wants to takeover conmpanies in many countries (China simply does not permit it and same goes for India, while Russia has signficant restrictions if they allow it at all).

Mostly Oz companies work hard to find something overseas, such as Equinox, spend years developing it and then get taken over for a small premium as the fruits of their work start to pay off.

We have a tax structure that is wrong by providing easy ways for overseas interest to avoid local taxes and by directing Australian money into the ponzi housing market. A foreign individual investing in Australia only pays tax at the company rate of 30% (if they pay any at all), while we pay at our marginal rate of 44.5% (or whatever it happens to be). Many times overseas interests do not pay any tax at all (eg the group that ripped out $1.5 Billion from Australia via the Myer IPO scam).

Rio Tinto derives more than half of its profits from Australia. It's Australian ownership is probably around 10% at the most.

The interesting thing about the UK FTSE100 index is it does not represent at all what is going on in the UK economy, because the companies listed there are global comapanies some of which would have very few assets in the UK. such as BHPB. RIO, Xstrata (not sure if it included in the FTSE100).

BHPB does not need to raise funds in the UK by listing on their exchange. They have a surplus of funds from operations, and can readily borrow both in Australia and internationally if they need it.

I could go on, but I have other things to think about.

loki