Annual Meeting, page-8

the non holders tend to be people who buy for capital growth before dividends

if you focus on that you often prefer company retains capital so it doesnt run increased risk of doing a fire sale CR like Sto or Org just did - because fire sale CRs are what kill stock performance for years and destroy wealth of existing shareholders

Generally the issue in resources is that commodity normalisations tend to go much longer than majority of people expect - so even apparently 'safe' companies have historically fallen victim to what is effectively arrogance when boards keeps paying dividends thinking they will always have cashflow sufficient to pay off debt

catherine raw is the second in charge to evy hambro at blacrock natural resources - world;s biggest public resources investment fund - they were no 1 insto holder in bhp but did cut back holding a few months ago so not sure if that is still the case
now we just see the consequence of relentless stupidity at ceo and board levels.

these people have only a passing familiarity - at best - with how economic cycles and capital management come together

this is exactly how bhp was forced to become bhp billiton in the first place

anyway enough from me - ive been carping on this same theme for 3 years - either you agree or not by now.