cash machine, page-5

re: now we know reason for no guidance From BHP post by Scottaru today

Interesting post My thoughts were down a similar line.

ZFX are showing off... and BHP's assets are orders of magnitude larger than ZFX's, not to mention number of shares on issue (487 million vs 6 billion) not to mention that BHP could BUY ZFX at today's price just out of RETAINED earnings i.e. it could still proceed with it's buyback, and buy ZFX using the change from this year's earnings alone. Whilst it's true that ZFX has nearly equalled BHP's EPS, and as such they now have a ridiculously low P/E, the company's future is linked to the value of a single commodity and therefore carries some risk. Also, ZFX are going to make you ait until late October for your dividend... so any money chasing the dividend will be busy elsewhere for another month at least.

BHP could wind up with all of the dividend if they launch a takeover in the meantime. It's not as far-fetched as it sounds, they might want to pre-empt any move by Teck Cominco.