BP leadership suffers setback over strategy shift – Daily Business

Albert Manifold: struggled to impress

BP’s new leadership has suffered a setback after clashing with shareholders over plans to scrap climate reporting and move its annual general meeting online.

Chairman Albert Manifold, who has only been in post since October, also struggled to impress shareholders with 18% voting against his election.

Crucially, investors opposed the energy company’s proposal to dial back its reporting commitments on the climate and its plans to allow votes at future meetings to be carried out virtually.

Mr Manifold was appointed to accelerate BP’s re-focus on oil and gas exploration.

Legal & General, with a 1.5% stake, making it BP’s eighth-largest shareholder, said it was “deeply concerned” by the company’s decision to renege on its climate strategy.

“We believe that climate change represents a financially material and systemic long-term risk to our clients’ portfolios,” it wrote on its website.

Ahead of the AGM, Glass Lewis, the influential shareholder advisory group had recommended a vote against Mr Manifold’s election.

However, ISS, another proxy adviser, offered support to the chairman. He was also backed by Norges Bank, which manages the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund and is among BP’s five largest shareholders.

Speaking at the AGM, he insisted BP had “overwhelming support for the direction of travel for the company”, but said “it seems very clear” that the two shareholder proposals “have not reached a simple majority”.

The meeting was a baptism of fire for new chief executive Meg O’Neill, who was named Murray Auchincloss’s replacement in December, after the Canadian was ousted having served less than two years in the job.

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