BP Shareholders Seek Vote on Fundamental Reset of Strategy

A group of four dozen institutional investors that hold a combined 2.5% stake in BP are urging the supermajor to put to vote any fundamental reset of its strategy that could include easing its climate targets, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday, citing a letter from the 48 investors it had seen.“BP has previously offered a shareholder vote on its transition strategy and we expect a similar level of accountability to be maintained for future material strategy changes,” the institutional investors wrote this week in a letter to BP chair Helge Lund, seen by the FT.BP last week pledged to fundamentally reset its strategy as it booked its lowest annual and quarterly profits in years and seeks to push up its stock performance and regain investor trust.“Building on the actions taken in the past 12 months, we now plan to fundamentally reset our strategy and drive further improvements in performance, all in service of growing cash flow and returns,” BP’s chief executive Murray Auchincloss said in a statement.BP’s leadership will communicate its new strategy, which “will be a new direction for bp”, at a Capital Markets Update on February 26, Auchincloss added.Analysts and investors expect even more cuts to the low-carbon business and a pledge to boost oil and gas production at the capital markets day later this month.The pressure on BP to improve performance became more intense earlier this month after reports emerged that activist investor Elliott Management had bought a stake in BP and would be pushing for changes in strategy, or even for board reshuffles.Elliott’s stake in BP is estimated at nearly 5% as the activist investor is reportedly pushing for major asset sales to address the undervalued shares of the UK-based supermajor.Elliott’s stake is twice as big as the 2.5% stake of the institutional investors who seek a vote on any rollback of climate goals.By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com