MAIL ONLINE: The embattled head of BP is on the brink of bailing out today - with a golden parachute to break his fall.
Tony Hayward, who arrived at the company's headquarters in London this morning, will receive a seven-figure payoff and a pension estimated at £584,000 a year.
He will stand down today after three months of abuse left him described as the ‘most hated and clueless man in America’.
The enforced departure of the 53-year-old Briton will top the agenda at a crucial London board meeting today.
He has been widely seen as a ‘dead man walking’ ever since an oil-rig explosion led to the worst-ever environmental disaster in the U.S.
The focus will not be on if he goes but when, and how much it costs. During his 28 years at BP, he has built up a gold-plated £10.8million pension pot which he can start taking at 60.
He is also entitled to a year’s salary, equal to just over £1million.
His departure follows a disastrous series of PR gaffes since 11 died in an explosion on April 20 in the Gulf of Mexico.
One of his most notorious was to admit: ‘I want my life back’, at a time when millions of barrels of oil were gushing into the ocean, wrecking the livelihoods of thousands of Americans.
A few weeks later, his decision to go sailing on his yacht in the Isle of Wight added to suspicions that Mr Hayward was not being suitably contrite. But the level of the fury from America has been extraordinary and relentless despite the fact that BP was not solely responsible for the disaster.
President Obama warned: ‘He wouldn’t be working for me after any of those statements.’
Yesterday a BP spokesman insisted that Mr Hayward, whose family have been the victims of crank phone calls, hate mail and death threats, remains the company’s chief executive.
But his departure is inevitable, and will be the second headline-grabbing exit of a BP chief executive in just three years. In 2007, his predecessor Lord Browne dramatically resigned after admitting lying on oath to a High Court judge. >>> Becky Barrow and Daniel Bates | Monday, July 26, 2010
