When will BP raise its dividend? It’s a question exercising investors after the oil major’s finance chief suggested that it wouldn’t be doing so alongside its full-year results in February, sending its shares down 3.8 per cent on Tuesday (Emily Gosden writes).
Brian Gilvary, speaking as BP reported third-quarter results, said that with a change of chief executive looming, it was “more likely” that a dividend increase would be further off, once it had made more progress with reducing debt levels and after Bernard Looney, its incoming chief executive, had set out his strategy.
Yesterday BP sought to play down Mr Gilvary’s comments, taking the somewhat embarrassing step of clarifying that “no decision has yet been made with respect to the fourth quarter of