The financial media was quick to judgment after oil major BP ousted its chairman, former CRH chief Albert Manifold, due to “serious concerns” about “unacceptable” behaviour.
“Beyond Parody – once again. What is it with BP?” asked one London Times columnist. The Economist’s Schumpeter columnist was even more categorical, lambasting BP for caring “too much about feelings and not enough about performance”, calling it “a very British shambles ... an international joke”.
In the Financial Times, John Gapper took a different view, arguing BP “should never have made Manifold chair” in the first place.
However, the market reaction was less emphatic. Shares initially plunged 8 per cent, but then recovered those losses within a day, and soon moved above pre-sacking levels. A distracted investor who hadn’t been following events might have seen the share price and wondered whether anything had happened at all.
RM Block
Available facts remain thin on the ground. Appointed just eight months ago, Manifold was fired due to what BP called “serious concerns ... related to important governance standards, oversight and conduct”, but it has not set out specific findings.
Manifold describes the claims as “lies”, saying no issues were raised directly with him during his tenure.
It’s all a bit vague, but the paucity of evidence hasn’t stopped two competing and equally confident narratives from emerging. The first is that BP is structurally unstable, cycling through leadership changes (including another Irishman, former CEO Bernard Looney, in 2023), and exposing weak governance.
Another says BP appointed a reforming chairman aligned with investors on strategy, but whose interventionist style ultimately collided with boardroom norms, and that this should have been anticipated in advance.
[ BP should never have made Albert Manifold chairmanOpens in new window ]
However, such readings rest on different assumptions about the same limited facts and are shaped by hindsight bias. For instance, it’s true that Manifold’s appointment was regarded as risky, but his 11-year tenure at CRH was enormously successful, with shares more than tripling. Until recently, BP analysts generally celebrated his hard-edged style, with shares soaring 35 per cent during his tenure, outperforming oil rivals.
The share price’s quick recovery suggests investors expect little lasting impact from this episode, with BP likely to follow Manifold’s lead and continuing to tilt away from renewables and towards oil and gas.
Investors, at least, seem less interested in assigning blame than in whether BP sticks to the strategy that has recently improved its fortunes.
