BP suffers investor rebellion at first AGM since climate strategy U-turn
BP suffered an investor rebellion on Thursday after facing shareholders for the first time since abandoning its climate strategy at a meeting marred by protest.About a quarter of shareholders voted against the chair, Helge Lund, at the company’s annual meeting in Sunbury-on-Thames, on the edges of London, which attracted protest from several green campaign groups.The Guardian understands that five protesters were forcibly blocked from entering the meeting before the vote, which marked the first time in at least a decade that more than 10% of BP’s shareholders voted against the re-election of the chair.The activists from Fossil Free London and Energy Embargo for Palestine protested outside the venue, describing the board as “murderers, looters and genocide enablers”, before major institutional investors voted against the re-election of Lund.The shareholder meeting was held weeks after Lund, who presided over BP’s failed green agenda, promised to step down from the company by next year.
Despite his resignation, the chair was forced to face a shareholder vote to re-elect him to the post until his departure, creating a lightning rod for disgruntled investors.The resolution received a provisional 24.3% of opposed votes.The outgoing chair told shareholders that the company had “pursued too much while looking to build new low-carbon businesses” but that “lessons have been learned”.BP’s chief executive, Murray Auchincloss, repeated his previous claim that BP’s optimism in the global green energy transition was “misplaced”, and that the board’s “one simple goal” was to “grow the long-term value of your investment”.
A strategy overhaul was considered by many industry commentators as BP’s only defence against the advance of an aggressive activist investor fund that could threaten the breakup of the 115-year-old company,The feared New York fund Elliott Investment Management amassed a stake in the company earlier this year,It typically takes aim at underperforming companies by agitating for changes that could resuscitate their flagging market value,Elliott is expected to call for sweeping changes to BP, which has lagged behind rivals such as Shell and ExxonMobil that have profited from the global energy market crisis in recent years by increasing their fossil fuel production,Mark Van Baal, the founder of the green activist investor group Follow This, said shareholders had “made it clear that weakening climate commitments is unacceptable”.
He added: “This historical result serves as a wake-up call to BP’s board and emphasises investor expectation for robust governance mechanisms and genuine leadership on ESG issues.”Sign up to Business TodayGet set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morningafter newsletter promotionAgathe Masson, a campaigner at Reclaim Finance, said the historic vote “sends a clear message to the BP board that their green U-turn was a backwards step and that some shareholders clearly want to invest in a green transition”.The rebellion included the UK asset manager Legal & General, a leading shareholder in BP, which voiced plans to vote against Lund’s re-election ahead of the vote, citing the company’s recent green U-turn and its decision not to allow its shareholders to vote on the new direction.Under Auchincloss, BP has scrapped plans to restrict its fossil fuel production in favour of green investments.Instead, the company will be “very selective” about investing in low-carbon options while growing its planned fossil fuel production to 2.
4m barrels of oil and gas a day by 2030 – about 60% higher than the figure in its net zero plan set out five years ago.The vote marks the biggest rebellion against the board since 2016, when almost 60% of shareholders voted against BP’s decision to hand the then CEO, Bob Dudley, a $20m (£15.1m) pay packet in the same year that a global oil market rout pushed the company to record losses.The latest shareholder standoff took place almost 15 years to the day after the deadly Deepwater Horizon disaster led to the largest marine oil spill in US history and plunged the company into a $70bn dollar crisis.The company announced this week an oil discovery in “the Gulf of America” – using Donald Trump’s newly mandated US name for the Gulf of Mexico – which it said underscored its plan to “step up investment in exploration”.
Apple iPad Air M3 review: the premium tablet to beat
Apple’s iPad Air continues to be the premium tablet to beat, with the latest version featuring a chip upgrade to keep it ahead of the pack.The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more.The new iPad Air M3 costs from £599 (€699/$599/A$999) – the same as its predecessor – and comes in two sizes with either an 11in or 13in screen
Spotify running again after users around world report problems
Tens of thousands of Spotify users around the world reported being unable to stream music on the app, which was hit by several hours of technical problems on Wednesday.Downdetector, which tracks platforms, showed more than 48,000 outage reports for Spotify worldwide on Wednesday afternoon.In the UK, the number of people reporting that Spotify was not functioning peaked at about 1.30pm BST, after problems began 30 minutes earlier. By 3pm, the number had fallen to about 10,000
Google sued for £5bn in UK over allegations of shutting out rivals
Google is being sued in the UK for up to £5bn in damages over allegations it shut out rivals in the internet search market and abused this dominance to overcharge businesses for advertisements. A class action filed at the competition appeal tribunal on Wednesday argues that the US company has taken actions that enable it to charge higher prices for the promotions that appear in search queries than it otherwise could in a fair market. It is alleged that Google, which is owned by Alphabet, contracted phone makers to pre-install the Google search app and Chrome browser on Android devices and paid Apple to make it the default search engine on iPhones, with the intention of shutting out competition. The claim is filed by a competition law expert, Or Brook, on behalf of thousands of businesses and alleges Google ensured its search engine had better functionality and more features for Google’s own advertising offering than that of its competitors.A Google spokesperson said: “This is yet another speculative and opportunistic case and we will argue against it vigorously
X’s UK profits collapsed the year after Elon Musk’s takeover
X’s revenues and profits collapsed in the UK in the year after Elon Musk took over the social media platform, the company has admitted.A decline in advertising spending amid concerns about “brand safety and/or content moderation” were cited as the reason for the fall, according to accounts filed this week to Companies House.Twitter UK Ltd also narrowly averted being struck off last month for failing to file the accounts on time, according to other recent filings to Companies House. It only filed full accounts on Monday for 2023, the year in which it was rebranded as X after Musk’s takeover.“The business continues to take corrective measures to build brand safety tools, invest in platform safety and content moderation and then educate advertisers about these initiatives,” the company said
Revealed: Chinese researchers can access half a million UK GP records
Researchers from China are to be allowed access to half a million UK GP records despite western intelligence agencies’ fears about the authoritarian regime amassing health data, the Guardian can reveal.Preparations are under way to transfer the records to UK Biobank, a research hub that holds detailed medical information donated by 500,000 volunteers. One of the world’s largest troves of health data, the facility makes its information available to universities, scientific institutes and private companies. A Guardian analysis shows one in five successful applications for access come from China.For the past year, health officials had been assessing whether extra safeguards were needed for patient records when added to the genomes, tissue samples and questionnaire responses held by UK Biobank
Pixel 9a review: Google’s cut-price Android winner
Google’s latest cut-price Pixel offers the best bang for your buck in Android phones and is arguably better in many areas than some models costing twice the price.The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more.The Pixel 9a starts at the same £499 (€549/$499/A$849) as last year’s equally good value model
British Steel on a razor’s edge: inside Starmer’s Scunthorpe rescue mission
What to look for in May’s local elections: Tories on defensive and Reform hoping for gains
Ken Burley obituary
Ministers scramble to avoid Labour rebellion on disability benefit cuts
UK politics: Badenoch calls for broader review of equality and gender recognition laws – as it happened
Ex-Reform MP Rupert Lowe to sue Nigel Farage for defamation