(Bloomberg) – Elliott Investment Management has built a significant proportion in BP PLC, according to people familiar with the issue, as Britain's main oil struggles to gain investor confidence and reverse years of underperformance.
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The Activist Fund seeks to boost the value of a shareholder by pushing the company to consider transformational measures, the people said, asking for not to be identified because the negotiations are private. Elliott believes that BP is underestimated and its performance is disappointing, they said. The exact amount of the stake could not be learned at once.
Representatives for Elliott and BP refused to comment.
BP has collapsed about 8% over the last five years, while its large oil competitors from Shell PLC to Exxon Mobil Corp. rose at least 30%. The company embraced under the former CEO of Bernard Looney Net-Zero in a bet that failed to peak that the use of oil had peaked, and has since struggled to introduce a clear strategy for turning.
With a market value of about $ 86 billion, BP is worth less than half of the shell today.
CEO Murray Auchincloss, a person who stepped into the role after Looney was sacked for his personal behavior, is widely expected to outline a clearer change back to oil and gas when introducing a strategy update he Highly awaited on February 26. However, investors have been growing impatiently, including after BP warned in October that its shares buying could slow down this year.
BP is expected to report a fourth quarter financial consequences on Tuesday, and has already highlighted a broad weakness across its business for the period. Although its largest competitors have also identified lower earnings during the last three months of the year, analysts believe that those companies have a clearer direction and stronger balance sheets.
Elliott's movement is the latest in a series of high -profile operators undertaking Big Oil. Exxon lost a battle to the Bishop No. 1 machine in 2021, while Third Point LLC under Loeb took a share in Shell in the same year, calling for the company to cut its liquefied natural gas, renewable energy and marketing away independently independently business .
In recent months Elliott has successfully pushed for a breakdown at Honeywell International International, which announced this week that he would split into a separate traded companies. The fund also revealed a share in the American Anglo PLC last year during the BHP Group's attempt to acquire the London miner.