Monsters of Rock: How much did BHP boss Mike Henry rake in last year?

BHP (ASX:BHP) shareholders had a field day with iron ore’s record run in 2020-21, with the 136 year old company delivering its largest ever dividend payout.

Now its annual report is out and its chief executive Mike Henry’s remuneration has been reported in all its garish splendour.

Henry saw his pay packet more than double in FY21 from the Australian dollar equivalent of about $8.2 million to $19.8 million. The company generated record exports from its Pilbara iron ore mines in 2020-21 as prices climbed through the second half of the year to historic highs.

Good money if you can get it.

More than half of that was down to shares vesting from his long-term incentive plan covering the company’s performance for the past five years, something that would have been around US$4 million lower under the BHP’s current remuneration rules.

Meanwhile, FMG (ASX:FMG) boss Andrew Forrest has been taking some profits from the latest uranium bull run. He has seen his stake in uranium hopeful Vimy Resources (ASX:VMY) dwindle due to dilution in recent years.

A notice on the ASX today revealed Forrest and his investment vehicle Tattarang had snared ~$2.43 million in recent days from the sale of a little over 14 million shares in Vimy.

Interestingly, the trade has taken Tattarang’s stake from 7% to just 4.99%, a tick under the 5% threshold at whcih significant shareholders need to disclose their holdings and stock dealings under market rules. $220 million-capped Vimy, which is up 430% over the past 12 months, fell 10.6%.

It remained positive for the uranium sector as a whole, however, with Rio Tinto’s uranium miner Energy Resources of Australia (ASX:ERA) the top performing mid and large cap mining stock for the second straight day.

GOLD ROAD RESOURCES (ASX:GOR)

Gold Road Resources suffered from some issues at its 50% owned Gruyere Gold Project in WA through the latter part of 2020-21.

But it found its start as a junior explorer and a positive exploration update helped the ASX-listed gold producer return to its roots with a 5.4% gain.

Gold Road continues to drill out areas outside the Gruyere mine in the hope of making another big discovery in the Yamarna belt where its big joint venture with South African major Gold Fields is based.

Recent results included a hit at its Smokebush prospect in Gold Road’s wholly owned southern project area of 17m at 5.74g/t from 279.5m downhole.

Gold Road has bumped its exploration spend for 2021 from $27 million to $33 million, with a total of 190km to be drilled across its tenements.

“Gold Road is committed to making a meaningful discovery at Yamarna. We are starting to see some strong targets generated and encouraging results returned that highlight the potential of this underexplored greenstone belt,” Gold Road MD Duncan Gibbs said.

“The increased budget will allow us to accelerate our drilling activities on both early stage and later stage exploration.”