Chairman Jac Nasser didn't dump BHP Billiton's progressive dividend policy at the group's annual meeting on Friday, but he did recast perceptions of it. A dividend cut when BHP reports its December half result in February is now even money. At BHP's London annual meeting on October 22, Nasser pointed to the group's profitability and A grade credit rating, saying it had given the board confidence to lift BHP's dividend for the year by 2 per cent. BHP would not risk its balance sheet and credit rating to maintain its 12-year-old policy of boosting or maintaining dividends every year, but that did not mean that "over shorter periods of time, the dividend is not covered by...
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