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After garnering an early reputation as a successful if somewhat boring Norwegian chief executive, Helge Lund has now found himself at the centre of corporate drama at not one but two of Europe’s biggest companies.
The 62-year-old former McKinsey consultant has become a lightning rod for shareholder dissatisfaction at oil and gas group BP and drugmaker Novo Nordisk as chair of both businesses.
At BP, Lund has presided over a board that changed both strategy and chief executives, while facing pressure from a large activist shareholder and drawing protests from several big, more traditional shareholders.
At Novo Nordisk, he initially led the Danish group on its rapid accession to become Europe’s most valuable company, riding a wave of huge demand for its pioneering weight loss drug Ozempic. But in the past year the share price of the company has halved, culminating in the shock ousting of its popular chief executive last week.
Lund is one of Europe’s leading industrialists. But can he regain the trust of shareholders at two such important companies? He appears to have his work cut out according to the shareholders I have spoken to. The share price performance of both companies suggest their views are representative.
“Over the past 6-12 months, he has not done a good job. He is likeable and friendly but he is not demanding enough. His time is running out,” says one smaller Danish shareholder in Novo. And one BP shareholder, a substantial European institutional investor, adds: “We are not seeing an inquisitive board that is receptive to shareholders, or questioning enough of management.”
The one-time pharmaceuticals executive came to fame in his native Norway as a young chief executive of Statoil, the national oil and gas champion, for a decade up until 2015. Under him, Statoil — since renamed Equinor — swallowed the oil operations of local rival Hydro and expanded internationally, although the latter has become more controversial due to big historical losses in its US business. His remaining executive career was shortlived but extremely lucrative after he became head of BG Group in 2015, only for Royal Dutch Shell to announce eight weeks later that it was taking it over.
Lund then moved into the non-executive world, in 2018 becoming chair of Novo, at the time a decent-sized but rather dull diabetes drugmaker. Together with chief executive Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen, he oversaw an extraordinary period that saw Novo make global headlines due to its weight-loss drugs. Its share price rose more than six-fold by 2024.
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But the past year has been much tougher, as fierce competition from Eli Lilly led to a slump in both profit growth and share price. On Friday, Lund announced the departure of Jørgensen but left some shareholders frustrated by what they saw as a lack of clarity on why he had taken such a dramatic step. “We wanted to see a stronger chair, who is pushing management. We are worried that he has been distracted by the mess at BP,” says the Danish investor.
Lund declined to comment, as did BP and Novo. But allies of the Norwegian believe he has been able to devote enough time to both companies, bringing a broader perspective that can benefit Novo and BP alike.
His biggest challenge has arguably come at the UK oil and gas company, which he has chaired since 2019. Lund’s job was to oversee two transitions — to more renewable power, and in recruiting a new chief executive — but faltered on both. A big change in strategy in 2020 to embrace renewables was itself reversed this February, while BP fired Lund-backed Bernard Looney as chief executive in 2023 for knowingly misleading the board over past relationships with colleagues. Over the past year, the BP share price has fallen by a quarter.
Allies argue that it has been a tumultuous period for BP, marked by extraordinary events from the Covid pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to Looney’s departure and the arrival of hedge fund Elliott Management agitating for the company to slash its spending on renewables.
But a quarter of the votes on Lund’s re-election in April went against him despite his promise to leave his position, mostly likely by next year — it was the biggest protest vote against a FTSE 100 chair in five years. That indicates many shareholders are not in a forgiving mood at BP. Unless the share price performance of Novo Nordisk turns around quickly, shareholders at the Danish company are likely to be of a similar mindset.
richard.milne@ft.com
BlueSky: @richardmilne.ft.com
