Andrew Mackenzie and Marius Kloppers / From BHP Billiton website

After the world's largest Anglo-Australian miner BHP Billiton Ltd. saw its profits for the second half of the 2012 financial year fall by 58%, its CEO Marius Kloppers has decided to step down, the BBC reports. He will step down on May 10 after six years at the helm of BHP Billiton and 20 years with the company. He will be replaced by Andrew Mackenzie, head of the non-ferrous metals division. In a statement, Kloppers said that the decision to step down was not an easy one, but he believes the time has come to hand over the reins.

BHP Billiton's half-year net profit was $4.2 billion. Net profit per ordinary share was $0.79 versus $1.8 a year earlier. The company's revenue for the six months fell by 14.1% to $32.2 billion.

Kloppers' resignation was expected, The New York Times notes. He had been under pressure from investors for some time after a series of failed acquisitions. In August 2012, he decided to forgo his 2012 bonus because BHP Billiton had to write down $3.29 billion in assets. Of that, $450 million came from a nickel mine in Western Australia, where profit margins fell, and $2.84 billion came from the American gas company Fayetteville, which it had bought a year and a half earlier for $4.75 billion.

BHP Billiton's net profit fell 21% to $17.1 billion in the financial year ended June, from $21.7 billion in the previous financial year. It was the first decline in three years, due to rising costs and falling prices for commodities including iron ore, copper, coal, nickel and aluminium. In August, it was announced that the company had suspended development projects worth more than $68 billion. The largest of BHP's suspended projects is the expansion of the Olympic Dam mineral mine in Australia. BHP had planned to turn it into the world's largest open-pit minerals mine, but plans were hampered by soaring development costs and falling copper and uranium prices. The Olympic Dam expansion is worth $20 billion.

In January 2013, the CEO of another mining company, Rio Tinto's Tom Albanese, announced his resignation. He made the decision after the company decided to include $14 billion in write-offs in its 2012 financial statements: $10-12 billion for the aluminum division, $3 billion for recently acquired coal deposits in Mozambique, and about $500 million for various small assets.

BHP Billiton CEO Marius Kloppers to resign after 58% fall in half-year profit