By Anousha Sakoui and Arunima Kumar
(Reuters) -Activist investor Elliott Management has built a near 5% stake in BP and is pushing the oil company to take radical action to transform its performance, including a big divestment programme, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Thursday.
Elliott is engaging with the company in advance of its Capital Markets Day, scheduled for February 26, which it sees as a critical event, the person said.
Some businesses under consideration to be divested are in the low-carbon sector, the person said.
BP said that it will be laying out a fundamental reset of its strategy on February 26. A BP spokesperson declined to comment further.
BP CEO Murray Auchincloss is on a mission to revitalise the company’s performance and boost profits.
On Tuesday he pledged to fundamentally reset the company’s strategy as it reported a 35% fall in annual profits, missing analysts’ expectations.
Auchincloss has worked to rebuild investor confidence after taking over from predecessor Bernard Looney.
He is expected to use the Capital Markets Day to announce his new strategy.
Elliott started investing in BP last year, the person said.
The activist investor is not asking the British oil major to move to the U.S., the source said, adding that rival Shell has been delivering in the UK and outperforming.
With a market value of about 75 billion pounds, based on LSEG data, BP is currently worth less than half of Shell.
Financial Times first reported that Elliott had built a BP stake of about 3.8 billion pounds, making it the oil company’s third-largest shareholder.
BlackRock and Vanguard hold larger stakes in the energy major, at 9% and 5% respectively, the FT report said.
Elliott Management, which has about $70 billion in assets, is due to publish a regulatory filing in the U.S. on Friday to disclose its quarterly positions in listed companies.
($1 = 0.8004 pounds)
(Reporting by Yamini Kalia and Arunima Kumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath and Jane Merriman)
