JSE-listed mining titan, BHP Billiton, on Thursday said it is set to list its offshoot mining firms on the London (LSE), Australia (ASE) and Johannesburg (JSE) bourses in 2015 in a bid to calm down unhappy shareholders.

In August this year, the world’s largest mining firm outlined its strategy to “spin off” businesses valued at about $16 billion to pay more attention to its moneymaking units.

These companies are mostly those that were merged into BHP after its amalgamation with South Africa’s Billiton 14 years ago.

At the time, BHP Billiton said it would list these businesses on the JSE (where the secondary listing would be) and ASE. But institutional investors voiced their unhappiness at the fact that the LSE had been left out.

The uproar prompted BHP Billiton to do an about face and it then last month told shareholders it was thinking of an LSE listing too.

“We are pleased to offer an additional listing in London in response to the interest investors have shown in the new company,” BHP Billiton CEO, Andrew Mackenzie, told Reuters.

“We continue to work towards completion of the demerger in the first half of the 2015 calendar year, subject to receipt of the necessary approvals,” Mackenzie added.

It is understood that the step was greeted positively by analysts and fund managers. “This will alleviate some of the forced selling. Clearly, it would be better if they were in the indices, but I am encouraged that they are listening to shareholders,” Reuters quoted Malcolm McPartlin, investment manager at UK-based fund Kames Capital, as having said.