NEWSMAKER-BHP's Goodyear exits on high note

By James Regan

SYDNEY, Feb 7 (Reuters) - For Chip Goodyear, who took a well-worn trail to Wall Street after an Ivy League education, transforming a company founded by a farm hand in Australia's outback into the world's biggest mining house may not have been an early career goal.

Descended from a U.S. lumber baron and schooled at Yale and Wharton School of Finance, the ever-youthful Goodyear galloped into a then debt-riddled BHP in 1999 as chief financial officer.

He was one-half of an American duo headed by Duke Energy's Paul Anderson imported to quickly stop the bleeding and rebuild "The Big Australian" after a series of investment blunders.

BHP quickly closed mines, cut 2,000 jobs and swallowed a A$2.3 billion loss (worth $1.5 billion at the time) before merging with South Africa's Billiton to become the world's top mining company with a market capitalisation larger than the GDP of some countries it operates in.

Anderson left, but Goodyear stayed and six months later was named chief executive, a job he says he will now quit by the end of the year, in part for personal reasons. Click here for the full story on his resignation. [ID:nSYD93686] "People were sceptical when he came in, since he was so young at 44," said Daiwa Securities analyst Mark Pervan. "He has certainly proven to the market he was more than worthy to run the company."

There is speculation that Goodyear has tired of living abroad and wants his two children schooled in the United States next year.

If analysts have got it right, by then BHP will have posted its largest annual profit ever of around $13 billion, sending Goodyear out on a very high note.

DON'T ARGUE

Goodyear, who is up most mornings at 4:30 a.m. to cycle to work, is said to get along well with BHP's aggressive-natured chairman, Don Argus -- nicknamed "Don't Argue" -- who has been at the company as long as he has.

In contrast, Goodyear's predecessor quit after six months, storming out of a board meeting citing irreconcilable differences.

An avid jogger who retains his clean-cut handsome preppy looks into middle age, Charles Waterhouse Goodyear rarely appears flustered, meshing enthusiasm with reserved diplomatic skills.

"Simply put, what a year!" Goodyear beamed over the company's whopping $10.4 billion profit last year.

Although schooled in the 1980s through the once esteemed Wall Street brokerage Kidder Peabody, Goodyear managed to endear himself as much to BHP's legion of mom and pop investors as he did to the big institutions that increasingly took stakes in BHP over his tenure.

Goodyear calls just about everyone by their first name and in turn is always Chip, never Charles, or Mr. Goodyear.

He told a media conference that his retirement should come as no surprise as he typically stays at a company for only eight or nine years.

"You never know with these guys, he could easily turn up running something entirely different," Shaw Stockbroking analyst John Colnan said.