- BP has lagged behind British rival Shell and American oil giants Chevron and ExxonMobil
- They have all doubled down on fossil fuels, while BP has focused on renewables
- Shareholders are disappointed with the green strategy
An activist investor has launched a scathing attack on BP, calling for chairman Helge Lund to resign over what the company describes as the energy giant’s “embarrassing” performance.
The London-listed company has lagged behind British rival Shell and US oil giants Chevron and ExxonMobil, which have doubled down on profitable fossil fuels, while BP has focused on renewables.
Shareholders are disappointed with its green strategy, which has made BP an outlier among its energy competitors.
Recent reports suggest new CEO Murray Auchincloss plans to refocus on oil and gas, following pressure from investors to improve BP’s share price and profits. But the FTSE 100 company has refused to confirm this and will not update shareholders on its strategy until February.
Bluebell Capital Partners, a London-based hedge fund, has written to the board twice in recent weeks to attack the company’s management and approach.
Not impressed: Shareholders are disappointed with BP’s green strategy
Co-founders Giuseppe Bivona and Marco Taricco called BP’s performance “unacceptably terrible.” The company, which has a small, undisclosed stake in BP, welcomed reports that the company planned to scrap fossil fuel reduction targets.
In its latest letter, Bluebell criticized directors for waiting to update investors on their green strategy, calling the delay “indefensible and utterly outrageous.”
Bluebell successfully campaigned for the dismissal of Hugo Boss’s CEO in 2020 and helped topple the boss of French consumer goods giant Danone a year later.
But the company sold its stake in Glencore after unsuccessfully lobbying for the ouster of CEO Gary Nagle this year.
It has previously set its sights on asset manager BlackRock, which campaigned for the dual role of CEO and chairman, held by billionaire co-founder Larry Fink, to be split in two.
Now the hedge fund, which has been in existence for just five years, has embarked on a daring David-and-Goliath assault on one of the world’s largest oil companies and two highly respected governance titans.
It called on Lund, one of Europe’s top industrialists and chairman of BP for five years, to step aside. The Norwegian is also chairman of the Danish pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk, maker of the weight-loss drug Ozempic. He was previously CEO of BG Group before it merged with Shell in 2016.
The hedge fund urged independent director Amanda Blanc, who is also CEO of insurer Aviva and a well-known figure, to resign.
“BP must immediately present an updated strategic plan,” Bluebell said. ‘Waiting until the publication of the 2024 annual figures is a waste of time and gives the false impression that this update is business as usual.
‘The update must be a clear recognition of the failure of the board. In the meantime, information that is regulated by nature appears to have been clearly and unacceptably leaked to the press by corporate sources in an attempt to calm the market and ‘buy more time’. Given the continued evidence of a seriously mismanaged company, we see no other option than for the chairman of the board and the lead independent director to be dismissed.”
A spokeswoman for the oil giant said: ‘As a publicly traded company, BP fully complies with its legal and regulatory obligations.’
Bluebell is a small group that tackles big goals from its headquarters in Belgravia, London. The hedge fund, founded in 2019, has become a thorn in BP’s side after it launched a campaign against its green strategy a year ago.
It came after former boss Bernard Looney, who resigned last year after misleading the board about his relationships, introduced targets to cut BP’s oil and gas production. He initially said fossil fuel production would be reduced by 40 percent by 2030, before cutting the target to 25 percent. Auchincloss reportedly plans to scrap the target altogether. BP has not confirmed the reports.
“The failure of the current strategy is ultimately reflected in the embarrassing performance of BP’s share price relative to its peers,” Bluebell said.
The Mail on Sunday understands that BP has met Bluebell twice, with one meeting attended by Lund. The company is said to believe that Bluebell’s views are not widely shared among its investors.
“From our extensive and active engagement with our shareholders, there is no meaningful support for Bluebell’s position,” the BP spokeswoman said.
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