BP to Sell Majority Stake of Castrol to Stonepeak

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00:00How big a deal is this then for BP and for Stone Peak?

00:04Good morning. Yeah, BP reset its strategic direction earlier this year. And a part of that

00:12reset was announcing a $20 billion divestment program. Castrol, its lubricants business,

00:18was the central divestment target for that program. And the expectations were that this

00:26asset could bring BP as much as $10 billion. And so, as we see today, they sold a majority stake

00:36in it for about $6 billion. And obviously, Mitchell, good morning. We know that BP is

00:43undergoing this transition period. It's getting a new CEO in Meg O'Neill. Does this sale mean that

00:50BP can streamline its portfolio as much, perhaps, as Elliott wants it to do?

00:57Yeah, good morning. It's, you know, it definitely achieves a target that BP set out earlier this

01:04year. However, a lot has changed since BP set out that target, right? There's a new chairman. You

01:11were talking about Novo Nordisk. There's a bit of a through line with BP. The chairman that

01:17departed both BP and Novo this year was Helga Lund. And his replacement at BP is Albert Manifold,

01:24who just started in October. And he is, as you say, he has made quick work with the CEO,

01:31changing out Murray Aukenkloss for Meg O'Neill. And so, there are still a lot of questions now about

01:37the direction of BP.

01:39Yes. And let's think about those into 2026 then, Mitchell. I mean, this is a business that had

01:46what, mishandled? Is that the way we describe it? A pivot towards renewables. Now, it's going to be

01:52under a new management team. I mean, is this a sort of back to basics oil business? Is that where we're

01:57going? That's what it appears, right? The new chairman said that he wants a simpler,

02:04leaner BP. And clearly, CEO Murray Aukenkloss was not the man to carry that out. And so,

02:14Meg O'Neill, who starts in April, will have to lay out a vision that could go a number of

02:23directions. But the thing that is clear is that it will be an oil and gas vision.

02:27And do you think there'll be more HR personnel changes under Meg O'Neill's leadership then,

02:35if it's going to be a serious pivot, a hopefully successful pivot for them this time under her

02:40leadership?

02:41Yeah, I mean, there are a lot of unanswered questions. Staff internally, as we reported

02:45on Bloomberg late last week, staff is uncertain about what's happening right now, what's going to

02:54happen? They have gone through years of transformations of strategic pivots. And now

02:59they have another pivot. Murray didn't even have a year to kind of carry out his plan. And now they're

03:09going to have a new CEO come in. Most people internally at BP were shocked by this kind of

03:15sudden announcement. That shock is probably what investors were looking for to some degree.

03:22But as a result, there are a lot of questions about what's next. And Meg will have to answer

03:31those in due time.