SO Lord Browne of Madingley will retire from BP in 2008 after all. The rumour mill has been abuzz with talk that he wanted to stay on beyond his 60th birthday and that he had fallen out with his chairman, Peter Sutherland, over the issue.

With welcome alacrity, Lord Browne and BP moved to put a lid on the speculation about the executive leadership of Britain’s largest company.

That said, the spat — whether it be more real or more imagined — leaves BP with a couple of dents in what otherwise is a gleaming suit of armour. You might have thought that if any company could be relied on to manage a seamless succession, it would be BP.

The personalities involved may also end up wishing that the past few days of fevered City gossiping had never happened.

Mr Sutherland may emerge from the affair looking mean-spirited, a man who allowed himself to become too attached to the letter of the BP human resources handbook and corporate governance codes of conduct. It will strike many as oddly ungracious that Lord Browne was not encouraged to stay on for at least a couple of years beyond his 60th birthday. He is hardly an old man and it would be a distinctly harsh critic who suggested that he had given all he could give to BP. No one suggests that Sir John Bond, at the age of 65, is unfit to take the chairmanship of Vodafone. Mr Sutherland may be accused of letting Lord Browne’s talents go to waste.

By the same token, Lord Browne may be seen as having behaved with petulance and arrogance. BP, we must surely hope, can thrive without the services of a single employee — no matter what the position held or the talent possessed.

In the end, however, the chief executive’s baton at BP will probably pass to an internal candidate and the oil giant will find sound ways of building on the Browne legacy.

Mr Sutherland, meanwhile, may find plaudits for keeping a healthy distance between the executive and non-executive responsibilities on the BP board.

And Lord Browne will find new outlets for his first-class strategic brain and top-notch managerial skills. He is already a non-executive director at Goldman Sachs and Intel. Other offers will come thick and fast.

Best sellers

SUCH vast sums have piled into private equity that, with added leverage, they could now finance £4,000 billion of takeovers and investments. That makes it a seller’s market for quoted companies. Private equity investors do not want to see their money standing on deposit for years on end.

American groups such as Blackstone and Texas Pacific, as well as European houses, should be competing for shareholders’ favours. At HCA, this appears to be happening, if only by a fortunate accident.

The former Hospital Corporation of America agreed the largest buyout bid ever, if debt is included in the enterprise value. The bid consortium is led by KKR, but it includes the founding Frist family and the current management. It would therefore have been questionable if the board had agreed to the usual tie-up clause which would forbid it from soliciting or talking to rival bidders and fine shareholders heavily if the board changed its mind.

Instead, the board insisted on 50 days to try for something better for shareholders. HCA may have unfashionable problems, but it has a pile of assets, good cashflow and a strong market position, making it just what the private equity boys like. Sure enough, several of the biggest names are running the numbers through their computers. If HCA is worth more to someone else, shareholders will get the benefit.

That is a powerful lesson to boards in Britain and round the world. When buyout firms are operating in a buyer’s market, it may make sense to encourage them by guaranteeing costs. In a seller’s market, boards that agree break fees and agree to shut out competition are plainly acting against their shareholders’ interests.

Unkind cut

DAVID CARRUTHERS is in no position to be able to carry out his duties as chief executive of BetOnSports, the gaming company targeted by US judicial authorities. Not only is he incarcerated in a Texas jail, he is also uncontactable.

Moreover, it is understandable — up to a point — that the company should want to distance itself from Mr Carruthers. His presence on the payroll may impede BetOnSports’s attempts to get back on track. It wants to get an order restraining the company from trading in the US lifted and if it can show that it has severed links with Mr Carruthers, it may have a better chance of success.

Notwithstanding all these factors, however, the decision by BetOnSports to terminate Mr Carruthers’s contract of employment is callous. The decision to cut him off — not even, apparently, with an offer to pay his legal fees — is little less than outrageous.

It is conceivable that a time could come when it is impractical or inappropriate for BetOnSports to keep Mr Carruthers on the payroll. It might be justifiable for BetOnSports to suspend Mr Carruthers while still paying him at least a portion of his salary. But whether this time comes before the closure of the judicial process is moot.

It would be better to make interim arrangements for someone else to perform the role of chief executive pending clarification of Mr Carruthers’s position. If BetOnSports wishes to encourage others to take risks on its behalf — judicial or otherwise — it will rethink.

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