:00:00. > :00:00.Now for the latest financial news with Sally and World Business
:00:00. > :00:20.BHP Billiton is set to report a multibillion-dollar loss
:00:21. > :00:23.for the full year, a deadly dam failure in Brazil adding
:00:24. > :00:31.US internet news site Gawker is up for auction,
:00:32. > :00:41.after it loses a massive privacy court case.
:00:42. > :00:48.Welcome to World Business Report, I'm Sally Bundock.
:00:49. > :00:57.Also in the programme, Rico will join us to tell us why China's
:00:58. > :00:58.richest man is delisting his company.
:00:59. > :01:01.Copper, coal, oil and iron ore are BHP Billiton's key products,
:01:02. > :01:04.and later today we find out how it is coping
:01:05. > :01:07.The global mining giant is reporting its full-year earnings,
:01:08. > :01:10.and the market is expecting big losses, with some estimates close
:01:11. > :01:14.BHP Billiton is the world's largest listed mining company.
:01:15. > :01:16.And, like many other commodity firms, it has been hit
:01:17. > :01:19.by the collapse in commodity prices over recent months.
:01:20. > :01:22.In particular, the slowdown in demand from China has left a glut
:01:23. > :01:29.BHP has also faced fallout from the Samarco mine tragedy
:01:30. > :01:31.in Brazil, which has been called the country's
:01:32. > :01:37.Last November an iron-ore mine dam collapsed and released a torrent
:01:38. > :01:39.of toxic mud, killing 19 people and leaving 700 homeless.
:01:40. > :01:41.Brazilian prosecutors have brought a multibillion-dollar lawsuit
:01:42. > :01:43.against BHP Billiton and its partner, Vale.
:01:44. > :01:46.Earlier this year BHP announced it was ending its dividend policy,
:01:47. > :01:49.which held that it would pay an equal or higher dividend at each
:01:50. > :01:51.half-year result, in order to protect its credit rating.
:01:52. > :01:54.Chief executive Andrew Mackenzie cut the mid-year dividend by 75%.With me
:01:55. > :02:18.is Gary White, chief investment commentator at Charles Stanley.
:02:19. > :02:27.Good morning, Gary. Hi there. We have outlined some of the
:02:28. > :02:35.challenges, tell us more about BHP's year. They will be significantly
:02:36. > :02:39.larger headline losses, but what we need to do is look underneath this.
:02:40. > :02:43.We are hoping that this could be the final piece of bad news from the
:02:44. > :02:48.company. There are going to be lots of write-downs because they have
:02:49. > :02:51.made lots of redundancies. There has been plunging commodity prices so
:02:52. > :02:54.their minds are not worth as much as they used to be because they can't
:02:55. > :02:58.sell the products for the amount they were getting at this time last
:02:59. > :03:03.year. However, if we look underneath that they are still expected to be
:03:04. > :03:06.profitable. The shares are up by about 45% since their low in
:03:07. > :03:11.February. So the market is expecting that from now on they can actually
:03:12. > :03:14.begin the recovery of the company, provided there is in a global
:03:15. > :03:20.depression or something really negative. So we are looking at a
:03:21. > :03:26.turnaround moment, in a sense. Yes. Talk us through the situation with
:03:27. > :03:29.the dividend. Andrew McKenzie, the chief executive, was adamant he
:03:30. > :03:32.wouldn't cut the dividend until about August last year but commodity
:03:33. > :03:36.prices just slumped in January and February this year, we had one of
:03:37. > :03:40.the worst start to the year and market ever, really. And it was
:03:41. > :03:45.forced, his hand was forced to do that, so he slashed by 75%. That is
:03:46. > :03:50.why today the quantum, the size of the final dividend is very important
:03:51. > :03:53.and could determine the share price action today. If it is better than
:03:54. > :03:57.people expected then we will get a rise in the share price. If it is
:03:58. > :04:00.worse than people will be fairly negative about the outlook. And what
:04:01. > :04:02.has been the reaction from shareholders when that dividend cut
:04:03. > :04:07.announcement came through? Because many put their money in companies
:04:08. > :04:10.like BHP Billiton because they see it as a bit of a dead cert despite
:04:11. > :04:15.the cyclical nature of commodity prices. It is of course they get
:04:16. > :04:20.that dividend. Exactly, dividends are an essential component of
:04:21. > :04:23.dividend returned in the shares reacted very negatively to that.
:04:24. > :04:28.However, they have rallied sense because the price of iron ore, one
:04:29. > :04:30.of the main commodities that the company mines, has risen
:04:31. > :04:33.significantly over the last few months, since February when we
:04:34. > :04:38.expected it to be a negative year for China. It has not quite in as
:04:39. > :04:42.bad as people had feared. Thank you for your analysis. Just to say that
:04:43. > :04:47.BHP's numbers will be coming out in a few hours loop is time, and we
:04:48. > :04:49.will fill you in on the figures, and the dividend announcement et cetera.
:04:50. > :04:52.Shares of the commercial property group Dalian Wanda are climbing
:04:53. > :04:54.after its investors voted to accept an offer to buy
:04:55. > :04:57.out its Hong Kong-listed commercial property unit for $4.4 billion.
:04:58. > :04:59.Rico Hizon is in our Asia Business Hub, in Singapore.
:05:00. > :05:11.Nice to see you. Dalian Wanda has become a company we have all heard
:05:12. > :05:16.of because of all it acquisitive moves in the United States. What is
:05:17. > :05:20.going on now? That's right, they hold property in China and around
:05:21. > :05:24.the world and of course because of their high-profile purchases of some
:05:25. > :05:30.major theatres, not only in the US, Sally, but also in the UK, and now
:05:31. > :05:34.the man who is China's richest man has now become richer because they
:05:35. > :05:43.have succeeded in taking his Hong Kong listed property private after
:05:44. > :05:49.its flotation. They are planning the mainland listings as a way to seek
:05:50. > :05:55.higher valuations. So the price per share to take it private represented
:05:56. > :06:01.10% up on the company's 2014 listing price and a 44% premium to its price
:06:02. > :06:08.before the idea of an offer was first floated in March. And that
:06:09. > :06:13.makes it, Sally, by far the largest taking private for Hong Kong group.
:06:14. > :06:17.So after it expected delisting, the company owned by Wang Jianlin is to
:06:18. > :06:21.refloat the company in China at a later date with a better valuation.
:06:22. > :06:26.But there are also critics to these so-called take private deals, they
:06:27. > :06:31.say it could pose a risk to Hong Kong's market if other companies
:06:32. > :06:34.choose to follow suit, since the city offers lower valuations for
:06:35. > :06:45.mainland companies compared to Shanghai or Shannon Shenzhen, or
:06:46. > :06:47.even the London Stock Exchange. So let's see how this plays out for
:06:48. > :06:50.other companies in Hong Kong. The bankrupt blog pioneer
:06:51. > :06:52.Gawker Media is going up for auction The sale comes after it lost a $140
:06:53. > :06:57.million lawsuit filed by former The British internet
:06:58. > :06:59.entrepreneur and founder of Gawker Media Nick Denton spoke
:07:00. > :07:22.to the BBC about why his company We have broken a lot of stories, and
:07:23. > :08:40.we have annoyed a lot of powerful people.
:08:41. > :08:47.Who will snap up Gawker? We will keep you informed.
:08:48. > :08:50.In other news: Australia's central bank has explained why it cut
:08:51. > :08:52.interest rates, for the second time in four months,
:08:53. > :08:58.It said inflation would remain low, and the economy is set
:08:59. > :09:01.It also said that house price concerns had cooled,
:09:02. > :09:04.but it gave no forward guidance, so analysts put a 50-50 chance
:09:05. > :09:07.of a further cut at the bank's last meeting this year, in December.
:09:08. > :09:14.Of course, markets across the world are extremely consumed with what
:09:15. > :09:18.central banks are doing, whether they be in Japan, in Tokyo, the
:09:19. > :09:22.Federal Reserve the US or the Bank of England. The European Central
:09:23. > :09:28.Bank. A complete shift in sentiment today for markets across Asia. Japan
:09:29. > :09:32.down by over 1% but the yen is getting stronger, the dollar buying
:09:33. > :09:36.just over 100 yen today. The price of oil also falling, energy shares
:09:37. > :09:39.under pressure for that reason. Let's quickly look at what has
:09:40. > :09:43.happened in the United States. You have a sense of how the day ended on
:09:44. > :09:46.Wall Street. Pretty much higher across the board, which is
:09:47. > :09:50.encouraging. You can also see how the euro dollar is trading at the
:09:51. > :09:56.bottom there. More business stories as we review the papers in the next
:09:57. > :09:58.couple of minutes. I will see you then. Stay with us on BBC