Britain's LAPFF recommends votes against BP Chair, annual report

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's Local Authority Pension Fund Forum (LAPFF) recommended on Monday that shareholders vote against the re-election of BP Chair Helge Lund, BP's annual report, remuneration report and abstain on whether BP CEO Murray Auchincloss should be re-elected.

Influential proxy advisors Institutional Shareholder Services Inc (ISS) and Glass Lewis have recommended that shareholders vote in favour of the re-election of BP's board, management and annual report at the April 17 annual general meeting.

In a strategy revamp in February, Auchincloss said BP would slash spending on renewable energy and increase spending on oil and gas.

This represented an overhaul of previous Chief Bernard Looney's 2020 strategy, which initially foresaw a 40% cut to BP's oil and gas output by the end of the decade, a 20-fold expansion of its renewables unit alongside the industry's most ambitious emissions reduction goals.

More than three-quarters of BP shareholders had voted in favour of the plan in 2023.

"LAPFF is disappointed with the 'reset' announced in 2025, in particular in the context of the governance around that shift," said LAPFF, which says it represents 350 billion pounds ($452.66 billion) of British local authority pensions, in a report.

(Reporting by Shadia Nasralla; Editing by Kirsten Donovan and Tomasz Janowski)