BP CEO resigns over relationships with colleagues

BP (BP) shares closed the day lower as CEO Bernard Looney resigned after acknowledging he had not been "fully transparent" about personal relationships he had with colleagues, according to a statement from the company. The statement says an investigation is ongoing and that relationships occurred before Looney became CEO. BP CFO Murray Auchincloss will act as interim CEO. Yahoo Finance Live breaks down the story.

Video Transcript

- Shares of the energy giant, BP, closing the day down about 1.4%. News that the Chief Executive Bernard Looney has resigned after less than four years on the job. He took over as CEO of BP in 2020 after previously leading the company's upstream group.

He had been with BP his entire career, in fact. And BP coming out in a statement here and saying that his resignation-- after his resignation, Murray Auchincloss, the company's CFO, will be CEO on an interim basis.

It looks like that this has to do with conduct according to the company. In their words, conduct in respect of personal relationships with company colleagues.

Apparently Looney had disclosed some relationships in the past before he became CEO. But the company found his disclosure to be lacking. So it seems as though this is what led to the stepping down.

But this is really notable. Both of us were talking about this with surprise because he has really tried to push BP into the future in a way that has been different from many of the other oil majors.

- Yeah, a lot of questions that are going to be raised here. You know, you put the personal conduct aside, which according to BP is the reason he's resigning. But in terms of the direction of the company, BP has been a company in transition, one of the most aggressive in terms of their transition to green, cleaner energy, when you compare it against some of the other oil giants.

I was just looking through some of the numbers again because, you know, it's worth noting some of the aggressive targets they set out, reducing fossil fuel production by 25% from 2019 levels by 2030. Bernard Looney did cut back on that because he talked about not being able to bring in the revenue under more aggressive targets that talked about fossil fuel production cut of 40%.

But really BP, as much of an example as it can be in this space, has been. So there's going to be a lot of questions among investors about whether-- you know, what that new leadership looks like and whether that direction continues under new leadership.