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Call for activist investors in the dangers of climate change Win a wonderful agency battle Companies that opposed ExxonMobil this week said that the super giant will need to cut oil production, indicating that they will continue to pressure management in response to shareholder votes to change strategy.
“They need to be prepared for success,” said Charlie Penner, who is in charge of the campaign campaign against the company launched by the hedge fund Engine No 1. “You will definitely believe that this means that future oil and gas production will decrease.”
The No. 1 engine, named after the San Francisco Fire Station logo, launched a bold effort in December to nominate four directors to the ExxonMobil Board of Directors and warned of the “survival risk” of its commitment to fossil fuels.
The brave performance allowed the hedge fund established last year to compete with the world’s most famous oil company, which has huge geopolitical and financial influence.
One of Wall Street The most expensive agent fight It climaxed at the unusual annual meeting on Wednesday, when Exxon Mobil tried what critics called the company’s version of the Senate obstruction bill, delaying the end of the vote, and at the same time, when CEO Darren Woods called The company’s strategy took an impromptu hour-long break before raising questions.
This is the first time Exxon Mobil Has dealt with controversial shareholder votes of this nature.
“Like many things we have seen in this campaign, their way of organizing meetings is under such an iconic company,” said Chris James, the founder of Engine No 1, in an interview with the Financial Times.
“The meeting yesterday was a perfect example of their failure to realize that the world has changed. All this is on display.”
Finally, Exxon Mobil announced that shareholders have election After a preliminary vote count, two nominees for the No. 1 engine. The fund expects that when the official vote counting begins, a third may be announced in the middle of next week.
Penner said that Engine One will pay close attention to management’s behavior. Some analysts believe that ExxonMobil’s management can ignore the fund’s new directors.
“I would not recommend it,” he said.
BlackRock and Pioneer, ExxonMobil’s two largest shareholders, both support some of the directors nominated by First Engine-this is a condemnation of the company’s management, environmentalists say, this heralds the entry of Wall Street’s approach to climate risk A new era.
But the First Engine is very clear that its campaign is related to ExxonMobil’s poor financial performance in recent years, and it is also related to the climate.
“ExxonMobil thinks this is ideology,” James said. But he added that Engine One is a “capitalist group and definitely not a non-profit organization.” “Our thinking is that this will have a positive impact on the stock price,” he said.
The hedge fund did not ask ExxonMobil to repeat the renewable energy initiatives that BP has taken.
“BP spent US$1 billion to buy half of the wind farm developed by Equinor. This is not a good business model. It has been punished by the market,” Penner said, referring to the British oil giant’s Recent transactions Cooperation with Norwegian companies.
Penner said that the No. 1 engine will give ExxonMobil time to formulate new strategies-but as the world begins to reduce carbon emissions, these changes will still be far-reaching. Penner said the energy transition is faster than expected, which undermines ExxonMobil’s assumptions about its long-term demand for oil.
“What we are saying is: plan for a world that may not need you [oil] Bucket,” he said.
For a company that currently produces nearly 4 million barrels of oil and natural gas per day, this will be a huge change, accounting for more than 4% of the world’s total, and has made long-term plans for large new crude oil Petroleum Project Near the coast of the United States and Guyana.
Exxon Mobil said it “welcomes new directors” and will “share our plans with them in detail and listen to their opinions.”
The success of Engine No 1 has triggered the argument that a new era of shareholder activism may have begun. The fund holds approximately US$50 million in shares in a US$250 billion company that was the world’s largest company by market capitalization less than a decade ago. Other companies are also taking a fancy.
“Our ambitions are obviously broader than ExxonMobil,” James said.
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