Pre-AGM voting data points to a larger shareholder rebellion than last year
MEDIA & INVESTOR BRIEFING
This Thursday, we expect BP’s AGM (11:00 BST) to be closely watched. Financial Times, The Guardian, and many others have covered the building outrage among investors. The oil major excluded a shareholder resolution filed by Follow This and 16 institutions, triggering widespread media reports. Many investors agree with us that BP’s governance is broken.
Please find attached the voting research, showing last year’s votes against the chair of BP and our expectations for this year.
Considering that the new chair chose to deepen the governance crisis rather than address it, blocking a validly filed shareholder resolution and proposing to scrap existing reporting commitments, we expect shareholders to push back even more intensely this year.
What to watch
Resolution 23: a board proposal to scrap existing climate disclosures. A vote above 25% against would defeat it.
Resolution 4: chair election. Normally investors give incoming chairs the benefit of the doubt — but Aviva and Legal & General, both of which have executives on BP’s board, voted against the chair in 2025, with 24% voting against. Legal & General has pre-declared a vote against again this year. We expect a comparable vote this year. A vote above 50% would leave BP without an elected chair.
