Albert Manifold, the ousted chair of the British energy giant BP, defended his tenure at the company and vowed to challenge the accusations surrounding his dismissal, adding more uncertainty to a company that has been rocked by executive turmoil in the past few years.<\/p>\n
BP abruptly fired Mr. Manifold<\/a> on Tuesday, saying \u201cserious concerns\u201d had been raised to the company\u2019s board about his leadership and citing \u201cgovernance oversight and conduct issues it deems unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n The board named Ian Tyler, a director since April last year, as interim chair, and said it would begin a process to find a permanent replacement. It did not provide details on Mr. Manifold\u2019s exit.<\/p>\n In a statement on Tuesday, Mr. Manifold said he had been \u201cremoved without warning and without explanation.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI dispute entirely the characterization of my conduct, and I will not allow a false narrative to go unchallenged,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n BP declined to comment on Mr. Manifold\u2019s response to his firing. Mr. Manifold had not determined how he planned to fight his dismissal, said a person with knowledge of his thinking who was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.<\/p>\n BP\u2019s shares fell 4 percent on Wednesday in London, after sliding more than 4 percent the day before.<\/p>\n It is rare for a multinational corporation to have a sudden falling-out with a top executive, said Andrew Teacher, a co-founder of the advisory firm Lauder Teacher in London, who called Mr. Manifold\u2019s departure \u201cjarring.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cManifold\u2019s vow to fight back against these accusations could also spell trouble for the new, and until recently unencumbered, management team,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Mr. Manifold, who previously ran a building materials company, CRH, joined the BP board on Sept. 1, and took over as chair on Oct. 1 on the promise to improve returns at the company, which had seen its stock slump in recent years as investors became discontented with its performance<\/a>.<\/p>\n In December, BP appointed Meg O\u2019Neill<\/a>, who had led the Australian oil producer Woodside Energy, as its new chief executive. She replaced Murray Auchincloss, who had stepped down under pressure from activist investors over the company\u2019s strategic direction.<\/p>\n Mr. Auchinicloss\u2019s predecessor, Bernard Looney,<\/a> was fired in 2023 for failing to fully disclose personal relationships with his colleagues. In 2020, Mr. Looney had said he planned to invest $5 billion annually in renewable energy<\/a> and reduce oil and natural gas production<\/a> by 40 percent in a decade. But after the war in Ukraine pushed up energy prices, BP reversed course<\/a> in 2023.<\/p>\n Ms. O\u2019Neill\u2019s arrival last year seemed to calm investors eager for a stronger focus on pumping more oil and gas. BP reported strong earnings in the first quarter of this year, primarily because of \u201cexceptional\u201d performance in oil trading and rising crude prices linked to energy supply disruptions in the Middle East. Its shares are up 20 percent so far this year.<\/p>\n But Mr. Manifold\u2019s ouster could complicate the company\u2019s turnaround plans, analysts at TD Cowen wrote in a research note.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Albert Manifold, the ousted chair of the British energy giant BP, defended his tenure at the company and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51346,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[21198],"tags":[25555,25556,25557,67,6704,24937,25560,25558,25559,25561],"class_list":["post-51345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bp","tag-albert","tag-appointments-and-executive-changes","tag-auchincloss","tag-bp","tag-bp-plc","tag-manifold","tag-meg-energy-executive","tag-murray","tag-oneill","tag-oil-petroleum-and-gasoline"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116655367387134782","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}