Just over 98% of shareholders voted in favour of the spin-off at concurrent meetings in Perth and London yesterday.

BHP CEO Andrew Mackenzie was delighted with the outcome.

“I think this a strong vote of confidence in the strategic direction of BHP Billiton and the future of South32,” he told reporters following the Perth meeting last night.

Perth-based South32 will hold Worsley Alumina in Western Australia, aluminium in South Africa, Brazil and Mozambique, coal in New South Wales and South Africa, manganese in South Africa and Australia, the Cerro Matoso nickel mine in Brazil, and the Cannington silver mine in Queensland.

South32 CEO Graham Kerr said the new company would start life in a good position.

“We inherited a set of assets that is high quality, well maintained and it’s been cash generative through the cycle – and it comes with some great people as well,” he told journalists.

“That gives us a strong opportunity to go forward.” 

Kerr said the assets, while smaller than BHP’s, had great potential.

“And we think that can be unlocked through running them in a different way, having our own board and their own management structure,” he said.

“The regional model will be a big enabler of that and we plan to talk to the marketplace more about that in August and we would expect that to be finalised and put in place by the end of this calendar year.”

Kerr is keen to establish a unique culture within the new company and following an Australian analyst tour last week RBC Capital Markets’ Chris Drew said there was enthusiasm on site for the move from BHP to South32.

“The shift from being a small, often ignored, operation within a mining giant, to being a much more important part of South32 appears to be driving a sense of importance and pride into each operation,” Drew said. 

“Easier decision making as management is de-layered is perceived as a key benefit, and we spoke to several people who were already communicating with counterparts at other South32 assets sharing best practice ideas; this did not happen under BHP.”

Kerr said South32’s best asset would be its people.

“Where we create most of the value is implementing the regional model, embedding the culture of South32 and stripping away the levels of management, reduce complexity, drive productivity harder and faster,” he said. 

“We have a lot of resources, a lot of resources in the South32 assets that haven’t been worked for a long period of time because they haven’t been able to compete with all the large assets. 

“These assets have large resource bases and one of the most value accretive things we can do is convert that resource to reserve because we already have the people, the yellow equipment and also the plant and infrastructure, so that’s the primary focus.”

Mackenzie said he was very confident that Kerr and his team would hit the ground running.

“Of course, now they’re going to face the rigours of being their own private company but in all other operational senses, they’ve been together and cohesive as one team building up pace and I think they’ll be running at full pelt pretty quickly after the 25th of this month.”

South32 will list in Australian on May 18.

BHP shares dropped 1% in London overnight and closed at $A32.35 yesterday.