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A group of 48 institutional investors urged the BP that shareholders give a vote on any plan by the oil major to return to their climatic goals, establishing a potential confrontation with the US activist Hedge Fund Elliott Management.
Investor intervention, including Rathbones Investment Management, Phoenix Group, Royal London Asset Management, follows the pledge of the BP Executive Director Murray Auchincloss to “basically reset” the group strategy despite Elliott’s pressure to increase performance.
Elliott built a nearly 5 percent stake in the BP -UI push Auchincloss to take away significant parts of business, including some of his green energy investments, the Financial Times reported last week.
But other investors are worried that Auchincloss will reduce climatic obligations and divert to the production of oil and gas on the day of investors in London next Wednesday.
“The BP has previously offered a shareholder voting on its transition strategy and we expect to retain similar levels of responsibility for future changes in the material strategy,” investors said this week in a letter to the President of BP, Helge Lund, who saw the FT.
The group holds a combined 2.5 percent of BP shares, according to FT budgets, just over half of Elliott’s share, drawing the influence of the Hedge Fund while the company estimates its capabilities.
Demand increases the pressure on Lunda and Auchincloss on the eve of the investor Day, which Elliott and other shareholders consider the key BP leadership test.
According to the decarbonisation strategy leading in the industry, led by Lund and former executive director Bernard Looney, the company has obliged to reduce oil and gas production by 40 percent by 2030 by 2030.
Two years ago, this commitment was established to reduce 25 percent, and some investors expect the goal to be completely abolished.
Auchincloss, appointed in January 2024, has already outlined new oil and gas costs that analysts expect BP production at current levels. The BP remains the only major oil and gas with a hard goal to reduce the output.
If the goal of production is lowered or removed, the shareholders want BP to disclose more detailed information about their consumption on fossil projects to ensure that it will continue to reduce the shows and does not remain stranded by property because the demand of oil declines.
“We need a clearer image of resistance and harmonization with the goals of Paris,” said Carol van Lamoen, the head of sustainability in Robeco, referring to the 2015 UN -Klim Agreement.
2022. 88 percent of BP shareholders voted for a company strategy, including commitment to reducing oil and gas production. The group did not offer shareholders voting on decarbonisation strategy since then.
Considering changes, AuchinCloss is expected to publish next week: “In a timely manner to ask the shareholders to be given the opportunity to vote about [strategy] At AGM in 2025, “investors said in a letter.
BP confirmed that he had received the letter, adding that he would answer in the near future.
Lund, former Norwegian Energy Group Equinor director, has been a BP chairman since 2019 and has been crucial in developing his current strategy. Auchincloss has been in the 2020 Committee and was the chief financial director before he took over the best job.
Although Elliott did not publicly declare his expectations, the Hedge Fund wants to see “a fundamental turn”, states a person introduced to his thinking.
This does not have to mean the short -term growth of oil and gas production, but it must include “a strong capital distribution, the right size of their costs [and] The deviations plan, “the person added.
Elliott refused to comment.
