	bhp sees strong fourth quarter but lower year net the broken hill pty co ltd brkn s said it expects a strong full year result helped by sigificant investment allowance credits in the fourth quarter but net will fall short of the record mln dlrs ed in ended may the group earlier reported its net ings dropped to mln dlrs in the first three quarters ended february from mln a year earlier third quarter net fell to mln dlrs from mln a year earlier and mln in the second quarter ended november bhp said in a statement ings in the first nine months were at the lower end of share analysts forecasts yesterday of a range of mln to mln dlrs bhp held its annual dividend unchanged at cents after declaring a steady final dividend of cents and announced a one for five bonus issue to shareholders registered may the bonus is being made from reserves which will not qualify for tax free distribution after the introduction of dividend imputation next july the bonus shares will not rank for the final dividend bhp said bhp said it should not be expected that the present rate of dividend will be maintained on the increased capital the level of future dividends will be influenced by the implications of the proposed dividend imputation legislation it said as previously reported dividends will become tax free in shareholders hands provided they are paid out of profits that have borne the full pct company tax rate bhp which confined comment to the third quarter said petroleum net ings dropped to mln dlrs from mln a year earlier and steel profit to mln from mln bhp said the petroleum division ings fall reflected generally lower oil prices and sales volumes from bass strait while the steel decline was due to a five pct fall in domestic sales and higher costs associated with the commissioning of new plant and some operational difficulties the rise in third quarter minerals net to mln dlrs from mln a year earlier largely reflected the increase in ownership of the mt newman iron ore project it said the mln dlr extraordinary gain all in the third term reflected a mln profit on the sale of blue circle southern cement ltd offset by a u s oil acreage writedown reuter 
