BHP's shale for sale

The mining company will bow out of its US shale venture after pressure from activist investors

BHP Billiton's shale business has been in the crosshairs for months. Elliott Management, an asset manager and activist investor that has built up a 5% stake in BHP, has been agitating for management to cut the US onshore oil and gas business loose. It even set up a website, fixingbhp.com, where it argues the company has burned through some $23bn of investor money in its "ill-fated foray into US shale". Now management is buckling to investor demands and says it will start shopping around its shale assets, which includes acreage in the Haynesville and Fayetteville gas plays and in the Eagle Ford and Permian tight oil fields. Andrew Mackenzie, the company's boss, played up the business, saying