Bloomberg – Opinion by Javier Blas | BP and its shareholders were poised for a celebration this week. After several punishing years, its annual meeting on Thursday should have marked a triple coronation: a new chairman, a new chief executive officer and a new strategy that, finally, looks set to make money. But even with its shares trading at a 16-year high, the oil giant has managed to turn the gathering into a rancorous assembly.
The trouble started when Follow This, a Dutch campaigning group on climate issues, tabled resolutions backed by a group of investors, asking BP and its rival Shell Plc to provide financial plans for a hypothetical scenario where global oil and gas demand starts to fall.
Shell agreed to put the resolution to a vote at its annual meeting in May; BP declined, on what seems like a technicality. The company says the campaigner failed to table a “resolution that was directive or mandatory,” so it doesn’t consider the request legal. The matter may end in court.
The rejection left some investors unimpressed, not because they support the resolution, but because they care about corporate governance and want BP to show it’s listening. Legal & General Investment Management, a top-10 shareholder, says it plans to vote against the re-election of Albert Manifold as chairman in protest.
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