Miner BHP Billiton's profits at a high before talks with activist investor Elliott

Executives at BHP Billiton will meet for crunch talks with activist investor Elliott Advisors this week, as the Anglo-Australian miner reveals its best half-year profits since 2014.

Elliott, which owns a 5.4% stake in BHP, wants to scrap the company’s dual listing and create a unified company listed in Australia.

Chief executive Andrew Mackenzie said he would listen to Elliott’s suggestions this week saying: “I acknowledge there are some ways you can do the numbers where the upside prize looks quite large.”

Elliott has claimed a unified structure incorporated in Australia could deliver “in excess of $22 billion (£16 billion)” in value to shareholders, including a $14 billion boost to its market value.

However, in its half-year trading update today BHP Billiton insisted its view was that the “costs and risk of collapsing the dual-listed company outweigh the potential benefits”. It wants to concentrate on cutting its debt and increasing shareholder returns that way.

Underlying half-year profits rose 25% to $4.05 billion from $3.24 billion, which Mackenzie attributed to higher oil and copper prices and a solid operating performance.

However, profits were slightly lower than expected, sending the shares down 3.5% to 1506p.