ALEX BRUMMER: BP shows Looney no mercy as he’s found guilty of serious misconduct

The last to be heard of former BP boss Bernard Looney was that he was in a bad place, having been dismissed summarily for providing misleading information about personal relationships with colleagues.

Given the eye-popping size of the clawback demanded by the BP board –£32.43million – one can understand why.

A lifetime of service, including a courageous shift to a green agenda, wasted.

Looney’s loss of wealth puts Alison Rose’s forfeiture of £7.6million, following her disclosure of details of Nigel Farage’s banking arrangements, look modest.

The former BP chief executive’s penalty is right up there with the $46million (£34million) NBC Universal chief executive Jeff Shell, who was fired in April this year for alleged sexual harassment, lost in stock options and pay.

Looney fumes: Former BP boss Bernard Looney is said to be in a bad place after being ordered to hand over some £32.43m after his dismissal for ‘serious misconduct’

The hard line taken by BP chairman Helge Lund and the oil giant’s board comes amid severe criticism of vetting and governance processes at the time of Looney’s appointment. 

He may have been the best person for the job but there was no shortage of speculation about his personal life.

Much of this seems to have been ignored raising questions as to why a flaccid board, stuffed with governance mavens, failed to be more meticulous in its scrutiny.

On the day that Amanda Blanc, the boss of insurer Aviva and a non-executive director on BP’s board, made disturbing revelations about unacceptable sexual harassment in financial services, an oil major has shown zero tolerance. Not before time.

Pharmacy comeback

The return of Boots to the London Stock Exchange would be an enormous confidence builder at a time of siege mentality in the Square Mile.

It should provide a reasonably solid investment opportunity for UK pension funds who so often prefer US and overseas equities to British, and are shy about exposing portfolios to the start-up AIM market and venture capital.

The fate of Boots since inveterate seller Nigel Rudd disposed of it for £12billion in 2007 is an object lesson in short-term thinking.

It also shows how private equity financing can be a menace. Loading up retailers with debt has harmed grocery competition in the UK where supermarkets Morrisons and Asda have suffered since falling in private hands on the eve of the pandemic.

When pharmacy supremo Stefano Pessina took on Boots with the help of KKR he had a vision. 

As Alliance Boots it would become part of a global brand and there would be no limits to its expansion including that of skin rejuvenating brand Number 7.

The subsequent merger with America’s Walgreens would be a stepping stone to Asia. 

The private equity demand for faster returns, a vast debt burden together with a rapidly modernising US drug store market, meant it could never be that.

A promised synergy between Alliance Boots and Walgreens never happened.

The need for cash to feed the beast saw Boots-branded manufacturing enterprises in Nottingham fall into the hands of super-brands firm Reckitt.

Boots has been grossly under-invested. Some London and city centre stores have received the facelifts needed and its beauty offering is a huge plus. 

But many of its 2,232 British shops are dull and in the wrong places. Pharmacists, cutting their teeth in the group, have seen it as an academy before setting out on their own.

The recent buyout of the pension fund removed a poison pill for potential buyers or an initial public offering.

The challenges are many and akin to those faced by Marks & Spencer before Archie Norman took the helm. At least M&S didn’t have an unsustainable debt mountain.

Much of what happened at Boots is in the public domain because Walgreens has a public listing.

One hates to think what has been going on in the engine room of all those other British public-to-private buyout victims.

Big bangs

Being a Pentagon-approved defence supplier is delivering rich pickings for BAE Systems amid geopolitical tumult.

The British defence and aerospace champion has picked up a £7billion contract to run a US ammunition plant for the next decade.

It has been involved in the explosives factory since 1989 and been developing what is described as a ‘safer’ replacement for TNT.

That is good for UK overseas earnings but a blow for activist peacenik investors.

This post first appeared on Dailymail.co.uk