Whatever happened between Albert Manifold and the BP board, it was disastrous. At 12:19pm on Tuesday, the oil and gas giant issued a statement with an abrupt, if scarcely literate, headline: “BP Chair removed.” This followed “serious concerns” raised at board level about “important governance standards, oversight and conduct”.
Manifold, the Dubliner who led Irish building materials group CRH to a world-leading position, was out of former British Petroleum. This is one of the biggest posts in British business, with a £1 million (€1.16 million) fee attached.
The storied company is again on the hunt for a new board chair, the third inside two years. What is more, BP’s newly installed chief executive Meg O’Neill is the third person in three years to hold that post.
The chaotic merry-go-round at the top of the £80.8 billion group has been likened to ferocious Tory infighting after Brexit a decade ago, when the Conservatives went through five prime ministers in six years.
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But for Manifold and the BP board that sacked him, this is no laughing matter. “This was an execution,” said the former chairman of an Irish plc. “The consensus is that there must have been something serious.”
Another person who knows Manifold said the speed of it all was startling: “Basically, they shot the guy before he had a chance to take his gun out of his holster.”
It is inconceivable that BP would sack the chairman without a board meeting. Still, it appears Manifold himself was not in attendance at his own board when the fateful move was made. The decision was unanimous, BP has said. “I was removed without warning and without explanation,” Manifold said in a statement.
He has taken grave exception to claims made in private about his behaviour, hitting out at “lies” spread about his short time in the company.
Still, there was no firm indication on Thursday that he might take legal action against BP. The overwhelming nature of the board’s move suggests it has strong advice that a legal challenge could be defended successfully.
[ Who is Albert Manifold and why has he been removed as chairman of BP?Opens in new window ]
But the manner of his sacking was still highly unusual. Companies tend to manage internal conflict with process and planning – even where the eventual outcome is clear to all sides from the outset. But this was different.
BP did not reply to a question asking when Manifold last attended a company board meeting. Neither was there a reply to the question of whether the board met on Tuesday before the company declared the chairman was removed.
As for Manifold himself, it is understood he was called to a meeting and told the statement was going out. Whether that meeting was on Monday or Tuesday remains unclear. His subsequent contacts with the company have been made via lawyers. He is said to have repeatedly asked BP to set out the substance of the board’s complaints, but the company has not done that.
Still, one Financial Times report said he had clashed with BP company secretary Ben Mathews before his removal. Mathews has been in that role for seven years and was previously secretary of HSBC bank and Rio Tinto mining.
Manifold became BP chairman only last October after he was selected for the post in July. The appointment was seen as the crowning achievement after a CRH career in which he was known as a formidable taskmaster who led from the front.
He made plenty of money in his 11-year tenure as CRH chief executive, with total salary payments in excess of €106 million. But the BP role carried huge prestige. “It must have been profoundly affirming,” said the former Irish plc chairman. “I can see why they would have wanted him,” he added, saying Manifold’s reputation was that he was “breathtakingly effective” as a business leader.
I fully accept that the members of the board have made their decision that I am no longer to be chairman and a director of BP. What I do not accept is that lies can be told about me, nor that anyone should be allowed to hide behind anonymity when commenting on my time at BP
— Albert Manifold
The task ahead of him seemed clear enough: cut costs with a renewed focus on BP’s core oil and gas operations after a years-long effort to remake the business as a green energy champion misfired. After turmoil since the 2023 departure of former chief executive Bernard Looney, another Irishman, BP also needed a return to stability. Now the opposite has happened with Manifold’s sacking.
No one ever said he was a pussycat or walkover. So BP must have known it was taking on a tough individual when choosing Manifold as chairman. In the world of oil and gas there was never any shortage of straight-talking frontiersmen who go about their business with swagger. “Are BP saying Manifold was too tough for Big Oil?” asked one Dublin wag.
In the way that large companies work, Manifold’s appointment was in all likelihood overseen by Amanda Blanc, the senior independent director on BP’s board.
Blanc, from Wales, has been chief executive of insurer Aviva for almost six years. Albeit in vague terms, it was she who set out the reasons for Manifold’s sacking when BP rushed out its statement on Tuesday. “Albert has helped bring a welcome focus and pace to BP’s transformation. However, the board has been surprised and disappointed to learn of governance oversight and conduct issues it deems unacceptable and has taken decisive action.”
The issues were not specified but stories quickly appeared suggesting Manifold was considered too aggressive by fellow directors and had sought a level of control more akin to that of an executive chairman. Manifold dismissed that as “nonsense”, saying he has been to BP’s head office in London on “approximately 13 days in 2026”.
He was alleged in Financial Times reporting to be “shouty” and it was claimed he withheld important information from the board and restricted O’Neill’s access to meet non-executive board members. A BBC report suggested he was sacked for “bullying” and “overbearing” behaviour.
[ Albert Manifold ‘disputes entirely’ misconduct allegationsOpens in new window ]
Manifold has rejected this outright, saying in a Thursday statement no one ever raised any issues about his conduct before his sacking.
“I fully accept that the members of the board have made their decision that I am no longer to be chairman and a director of BP. What I do not accept is that lies can be told about me, nor that anyone should be allowed to hide behind anonymity when commenting on my time at BP,” he said.
“Is it possible that in my determination to drive change on costs, performance, the balance sheet and shareholder communications, I pushed hard and challenged people directly? Yes, it is. But there is a considerable distance between driving an organisation with urgency and the characterisation of my conduct that is now being put about.”
BP noted his comments, but nothing had changed. “We stand by the statement we have made. We have a duty of care to all our employees, particularly those impacted by his behaviour,” BP said.
Such assertions have mystified people who know Manifold. “The only thing about Albert is, he’s not stupid,” said someone familiar with his CRH work. “In business at elite level you’ve got be tough but also fair. There’s no secrets there. I wouldn’t have seen that coming.”
Whatever went on exactly, it was enough to wreck Manifold’s relationship with his fellow directors. He was replaced in an interim capacity by Ian Tyler, a businessman who is chairman of Grafton Group, the Dublin-based owner of Chadwicks building materials supplier and the Woodies DIY chain. Someone who has seen Tyler in action up close described him as having a “very calm and very reassuring demeanour” – quite different from Manifold’s “thrusting” style.
The BP executive board members are O’Neill, the American chief executive in place since April 1st after five years in command of Woodside Energy, and chief financial officer Kate Thompson. In his Thursday statement Manifold said: “Meg, Kate and their executive colleagues are among the finest people I have worked with.”
There were no such words for the rest of the board. The non-executive members include Dave Hager, American former executive chairman of Devon Energy Corporation, and Tushar Morzaria, British former finance director at Barclays bank. Hina Nagarajan, an Indian citizen, is president of drinks group Diageo Africa. Satish Pai, also Indian, is managing director of aluminium and copper group Hindalco Industries. Johannes Teyssen, a German, is chairman of the supervisory board of Lufthansa.
This is a quite different board composition to the BP of old. The company’s origins are traced to the days before the first World War when Winston Churchill, then in charge of the royal navy, persuaded the British government to buy a half-share in a company that had oil in what is now Iran. This was when world navies were turning towards oil. BP became one of the “Seven Sisters”, the energy groups that controlled the industry for decades until the oil shocks of the 1970s. The others were Exxon, Mobil, Chevron, Texaco, Gulf Oil and Shell.
Back then, the BP board was described as something like a miniature House of Lords, with six peers among the 14 directors in 1974. Among them were the former head of the Foreign Office, the former Bank of England governor, the former chief of the Defence Staff and a former ambassador to Moscow. “The BP senior staff has always been peppered with ex-military men and ex-government officials,” wrote journalist Anthony Sampson in a history of the Seven Sisters.
The BP board of the 21st century is a different beast. Manifold said he sought to streamline and refresh the board and started to advocate for a review of the workings, but argued his priorities as chairman “were not always shared by everyone” else.
“I sought to accelerate cost reduction, simplify the portfolio and strengthen the balance sheet. Where I saw unnecessary or excessive expenditure, I called it out,” he said.
“I had no interest in having a dedicated chauffeur-driven limousine at my beck and call on the occasions that I was in London. I, like most people, walked, took taxis, trains, etc.
[ BP profits hit 3-year high as Iran war delivers windfallOpens in new window ]
“I had no interest in taking private aviation nor in availing myself of corporate tickets for sports events. I made my own coffee, bought my lunch in the local cafe ... I sat in a small office, eschewing the grand corner-office privilege of previous chairmen. I did these things because I wanted to set an example.”
For all that, it appears there is no way back for Manifold in BP. It was only last month that he survived an investor rebellion at the company’s annual meeting. Almost one-fifth of BP shareholders (18 per cent) voted against his re-election when advisory group Glass Lewis raised questions over governance and called for his continuation as chairman to be blocked.
Manifold won out that day but it seems now that acute problems were building up behind the scenes.
