OIL giant BP yesterday revealed Sir Peter Sutherland's successor as chairman after a long search.
Carl-Henric Svanberg, chief executive of Swedish telecoms group Ericsson, is to take over in January – he will join the British company's board in September.
Tony Hayward, BP's chief executive, said the group would benefit from Svanberg's exper
ience in emerging markets and in dealing with governments as it shifts the focus of its downstream business – including refining and marketing – eastwards.
A BP spokesman said the new man would be on a "similar" contractual arrangement to Sutherland, who has been its chairman for 12 years and who stepped down as a non-executive director at Royal Bank of Scotland as part of the bank's boardroom revamp on 6 February.
Sutherland earned £600,000 a year at the oil giant for an average of two to three days a week.
Analysts said Svanberg, 57, had been largely successful at Ericsson since becoming chief executive in 2003, but his reputation had been tarnished by a botched profit warning in 2007 that came after a bullish investor presentation.
Alexander Peterc, telecoms analyst at Exane BNP Paribas, said Svanberg's departure "has been pretty much rumoured for the past year and a half, since the 2007 profit warning".
But Richard Windsor, global technology specialist at investment bank Nomura, did not think Svanberg had been pushed. "I think the timing has caught Ericsson a little bit on the hop," he said.
Hayward said the challenge for BP in downstream was "how to reposition the capital employed from the mature markets into the immature". He said that would involve "growing markets, and that's something that the telecoms industry has managed to do very successfully over the last decade or so".
He added: "In terms of managing that transition, I think Carl-Henric will have a hell of a lot to offer."
Analysts said governments were big buyers of telecoms equipment, while regulatory issues were also a big driver for that sector. As governments award oil and gas licences, and decide taxes, good government relations were similarly essential for oil companies, they said.
Svanberg's appointment ends a fraught recruitment process at BP. Sutherland had expected to stand down late last year or earlier this year, and BP initially selected miner Rio Tinto's then chairman Paul Skinner, a former Shell executive, to fill the job.
However, Skinner withdrew after investor unease over Rio's plan to sell $19.5 billion (£12bn) in assets and bonds to Chinese state-owned aluminium group Chinalco, BP sources said.
Sutherland's previous experience as an EU commissioner and head of the World Trade Organisation brought the group valuable international contacts. He is remembered for a spat with former BP chief executive Lord Browne over the latter's desire to extend his role beyond the normal retirement age of 60.
Svanberg will also remain on the Ericsson board. His successor at Ericsson will be its chief financial officer, Hans Vestberg.
