A rebellious wind at TotalEnergies? Shareholders of the oil giant announced this Thursday that they had tabled a resolution for the general meeting of May 24 in order to separate the functions of general manager and chairman of the board of directors, which are held by CEO Patrick Pouyanné. The members of this coalition of shareholders hope for better governance and more ambitious commitments on the climate, they explain.
This resolution was tabled by the Ethos foundation, which represents pension funds in Switzerland and a coalition of 19 international investors, coordinated by the French organization Forum for Responsible Investment (FIR), including Achmea Investment management (Pays- Low, 218 billion euros of assets under management), Candriam (Belgium, 144 billion) or AP7 (Sweden, 102.4 billion). All together, they represent more than 1 billion euros of shares, or 0.62% of TotalEnergies' total market capitalization of 162 billion.
“Introduce better governance”
Their resolution
“invites the board of directors of TotalEnergies to put an end to the combination of the functions of president and general manager”
of Patrick Pouyanné, the president and general manager of the French group, who should be renewed for a fourth term during this general meeting (AG). The shareholders assure that their resolution
“does not aim to call into question the role of Patrick Pouyanné as general manager but to introduce better governance”
.
According to them,
“the concentration of powers in the hands of one and the same person indeed represents an intrinsic risk of conflicts of interest, to the extent that the role of the board of directors is to ensure that the general management of the business is carried out in the interest of shareholders and all stakeholders
. The signatories, worried about TotalEnergies'
“insufficient climate strategy”
and their
“difficulties”
in
“making their voice heard”
on this subject, believe that
“the separation of roles could improve dialogue with the board of directors on the issues climate and transition”
.
During the last general meetings, several coalitions of investors submitted resolutions to ask TotalEnergies to make commitments to reduce its CO2 emissions or to clarify its climate policy. All were rejected, and the one tabled in 2022 was not included on the agenda of the AGM by TotalEnergies - sparking controversy -, but the resolution tabled by the activist shareholder organization Follow This in 2023 still received 30.4% of the votes.