New BP chairman Albert Manifold will have the votes of at least three of the company’s top shareholders this week, as he faces opposition to his election in a key moment for the energy giant.
Norway’s $2.2 trillion (€1.8 trillion) sovereign wealth fund has said it will support Manifold along with a slate of other management-backed proposals at an annual general meeting on Thursday.
Two other major shareholders will also vote for Manifold, people with direct knowledge of the plans said, asking not to be identified discussing private deliberations.
The support comes as No 8 shareholder Legal and General Group (L&G) said it would vote against Manifold, while proxy adviser Glass Lewis and Co recommended investors do the same, after the board refused to allow a vote on a shareholder resolution, raising concerns about transparency and corporate governance.
The general meeting will be the first for both Manifold and Meg O’Neill, the chief executive officer he appointed after firing Murray Auchincloss late last year, saying changes weren’t happening fast enough to reboot the company after years of failed low-carbon bets.
Manifold, former chief executive (CEO) of Irish construction materials company CRH, took over the board in October warning of tough decisions, following calls for change from activist investor Elliott Investment Management.
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L&G has said it will vote against Manifold over what it called a reduction in transparency and board accountability, including the board’s exclusion of a shareholder climate proposal filed by activist group Follow This. Glass Lewis has also urged shareholders to oppose Manifold’s election, citing the exclusion.
L&G and Norway’s Norges Bank Investment Management are both among the 12 shareholders with a stake of at least 1 per cent in BP, according to the latest filings compiled by Bloomberg. L&G held almost 1.6 per cent of the shares as of last week, while Norges Bank owned about 2.7 per cent at end of February, the data shows.
The Local Authority Pension Fund Forum, representing UK council pension funds with more than £425 billion (€489 billion) in assets, has called on its members to oppose the chairman and to back a rival resolution from Australian activist group ACCR seeking enhanced disclosure on upstream capital discipline.
California’s giant public employees’ and teachers’ pension funds are also voting against Manifold, but they only held a combined 0.2 per cent of BP at the end of February. BP’s ownership structure is very diluted, with the top 20 investors holding less than 40 per cent, making it hard to predict which way the vote will go.
“Following extensive engagement with our largest investors we are fully focused on building a simpler, stronger and more valuable BP,” a BP spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “That’s why we are making these recommendations, to provide transparent, standardised disclosures that support clear comparisons across companies.”
Proxy adviser Institutional Shareholder Services has recommended supporting Manifold and opposes the ACCR resolution. But it has urged shareholders to vote against BP on two other items: a proposal to allow virtual-only agms and a measure to revoke binding climate-disclosure resolutions passed in 2015 and 2019. Glass Lewis backs BP on the virtual-agms, while supporting ACCR’s proposal. BP’s agms are held in person only.
BP’s board, “having taken legal advice, concluded that the proposal from Follow This was not valid and would be ineffective were it to pass at the agm”, the spokesperson said. The London-based company’s net-zero targets remain unchanged, and the disclosure changes are intended to retire duplicative reporting that has become outdated, the spokesperson said.
Following a tumultuous 2025, BP said last week its important oil-trading division had an exceptional first quarter and that refining margins improved as energy prices surged. But a rise in net debt makes O’Neill’s mission to streamline the company more complicated. Less than a month on the job, she has already moved to reshape the company’s structure and leadership.
She “takes over at a critical turning point for the company”, UBS head of European energy equity research Joshua Stone wrote in a note to clients last week. “A higher-for-longer price environment is undoubtedly positive for the stock, but there is still work to regain investor confidence.”
This year, BP’s shares are second only to TotalEnergies among the top five oil majors, with a gain of about 30 per cent in dollar terms. In the past few years, however, they’ve lagged behind. – Bloomberg
