BHP has warned dividends will drop for investors – which include most super funds – under the same jobs, same pay reforms.Alongside its size and historically strong returns, the resources company draws superannuation savers with bumper fully franked dividends whichdividends would suffer
Equities account for 30 per cent of total SMSF assets and nearly half of all fund members were at least partially in retirement phase, he said. Australian Shareholders’ Association chief executive Rachel Waterhouse said if the proposed reforms translated into lower dividends, it would hurt many businesses and organisations. “It’s good that a company is highlighting potential risks,” she said.
AustralianSuper, UniSuper, Aware Super and AMP all declined to comment on their BHP holdings and the expected dividend hit.Adviser Liam Shorte, of Verante Financial Planning, said the impact of the industrial relations reforms could take BHP’s dividend yield to just below 5 per cent. While SMSF investors were used to the cyclical nature of resource stocks, the change might cause some people to pay more attention to term deposits.