BHP forgoes Dutch link as Billiton name dropped

BHP has dropped the 158-year old slice of history, Billiton, from its name after shareholders approved the new slimmed-down moniker.

The move comes 17 years after Australia's Broken Hill Proprietary Company merged with the Anglo-Dutch Billiton.

Billiton's origins stretch back as September 1860, when investors met the Het Groot Keizerhof hotel in The Hague, Netherlands. Two months later, according to the company's website, the newly formed business acquired the concession to a tin-rich island called Billiton in the Indonesian archipelago near Sumatra. The island has since changed its own name to Belitung.

Royal Dutch Shell acquired Billiton in 1970 and subsequently sold in again in 1994 to South Africa's Gencor, which three years later spun it off onto the London Stock Exchange before it merged with Broken Hill in 2001.

Last week, shareholders in Aussie-listed BHP Billiton Limited and London-listed BHP Billiton Plc approved the change of names to BHP Group Limited and BHP Group Plc, effective on Monday 19 November.