BHP share price in focus
BHP Group (formerly known as BHP Billiton) is a diversified natural resources company founded in 1885 that produces commodities for energy use and manufacturing.
BHP’s core business lines are mineral exploration and production. BHP’s assets, operations and interests are separated into three focus areas: copper and related minerals (e.g. gold, uranium, silver, zinc, etc.); iron ore; and coal (i.e. metallurgical and energy). While these categories make up the bulk of revenue and profit, the company is also diversifying into other areas such as fertiliser.
BHP shares have long been viewed as a reliable dividend-paying investment and are a common member of Australian share portfolios. It’s also one of the largest companies in Australia so if you own an ASX 200 ETF or LIC, or even have money in superannuation, chances are you already have some exposure to BHP shares.
Let’s talk profits
If you’ve ever tried to read a company’s income statement on the annual report, you’ll know it can get pretty complex. While there are any number of figures you could pull from this statement, three key ones are revenue, gross margin, and profit.
Revenue is important for obvious reasons – everything starts here. If you can’t generate revenue, you can’t generate profit. What we’re concerned about is not so much the absolute number, but the trend. BHP last reported an annual revenue of $56,027m with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the last 3 years of -0.7% per year.
Moving down the income statement, we then get to gross margin. The gross margin tells us how profitable the core products/services are – before you take into account all the overhead costs, how much money does the company make from selling $100 worth of goods or services? BHP’s latest reported gross margin was 82.3%.
Finally, we get to profit, arguably the most important figure. Last financial year BHP Group Ltd reported a profit of $7,897m. That compares to 3 years ago when they made a profit of $11,304m, representing a CAGR of -11.3%.
A pulse check on BHP shares
The next thing we need to consider is the capital ‘health’ of the company. What we’re trying to assess here is whether they’re generating a reasonable return on their equity (the total shareholder value) and have a decent safety buffer. One measure we can look at is net debt. This is simply the total debt minus the company’s cash holdings. In the case of BHP, the current net debt sits at $9,467m.
A high number here means that a company has a lot of debt which potentially means higher interest payments, greater instability, and higher sensitivity to interest rates. A negative value on the other hand indicates the company has more cash than debt (a useful safety buffer).
Another figure we can look at is the debt/equity percentage. This tells us how much debt the company has relative to shareholder ownership. In other words, how leveraged is the company? BHP has a debt/equity ratio of 45.3%, which means they have more equity than debt.
Finally, we can look at the return on equity (ROE). The ROE tells us how much profit a company is generating as a percentage of its total equity – high numbers indicate the company is allocating capital well and generating value, while a low number suggests the profits might offer more value if they were paid to shareholders as a dividend. BHP generated an ROE of 19.7% in FY24.
What to make of BHP shares?
The high return on equity might suggest that the BHP share price is worth watching, but I’d be wary of the negative trend in profit and revenue.
Please keep in mind this should only be the beginning of your research. It’s important to get a good grasp of the company’s financials and compare it to its peers. It’s also important to make sure the company is priced fairly. To learn more about share price valuation, you can sign up for one of our many free online investing courses.
