By Tom Bergin
LONDON, June 25 (Reuters) - Peter Sutherland failed in his aim to keep a low profile as chairman of BP, a role he relinquishes at the end of 2009, but in arousing media interest he won plaudits for taking on a powerful chief executive.
BP said on Thursday that it had ended its long search for a replacement for Sutherland, appointing Ericsson CEO Carl-Henric Svanberg to the role.
Sutherland, 63, will end his reign as BP's longest-serving Chairman in December, having taken up the job in May 1997.
Previously, the Jesuit-educated barrister served as Ireland's Attorney General, a European Union Commissioner and Director-General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). He has also been chairman of Goldman Sachs' overseas arm since 1995.
Sutherland believed corporate chairmen should stay out of the limelight, leaving the senior management to present and take credit for company strategy.
This proved unproblematic during the first nine years of his chairmanship, when BP's CEO John Browne was at the forefront of a round of mega-mergers in the oil industry.
Browne's foresight in snapping up rivals when crude prices hit $10/barrel, and his success in integrating them, led to him topping polls of Europe's most respected businesspeople.
Some blamed Sutherland for allowing Browne for becoming too dominant at BP and Sutherland himself conceded the CEO's profile "personalised leadership" at the oil giant.
However, when Browne attempted to extend his tenure beyond his 60th birthday - the traditional retirement age at BP -- Sutherland lived up his reputation, among friends and detractors alike, as a "bruiser", forcing Browne to name a date for his departure.
"He was robust at the right time. It was the right decision and he deserves credit for it," Ivor Pether, fund manager at Royal London Asset Management, said.
Sutherland showed a similar willingness to act as BP's big gun in 2008, when the London-based oil major had a battle with its oligarch partners in Russian oil company TNK-BP, over control of the joint venture.
Sutherland described the partners as corporate raiders and complained that the Kremlin was doing nothing to stop them.
The two sides later agreed a peace deal, though that did involve BP giving up management control.
"I only became a public face of BP when it became inevitable," Sutherland said in an interview with an internal BP magazine earlier this year.
VICTIM OF BANKING CRISIS
Sutherland became a victim of the global banking crisis in 2009 when the Royal Bank of Scotland, where he was a non-executive director since 2001, had to be rescued by the UK government.
The issue figured prominently at BP's AGM this year, where some investors called on Sutherland to step down over his failure to help avert RBS's collapse.
Sutherland comfortably won the vote for his reappointment -- which he only sought because BP had failed to find a successor for him -- but the criticism appeared to dent his confidence.
The Chairman was usually a popular presence at the shareholders reception after AGMs, chatting and joking for some time with small investors. However, this year he failed to attend.
Before being appointed Chairman, Sutherland was a BP board member from 1995 and also a director from 1990 to 1993, when he resigned to take the top job at the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the precursor to the WTO.
Sutherland, who is also a financial adviser to the Vatican, remains Chairman of Goldman Sachs International and plans to remain involved in international affairs. He is a passionate advocate of globalisation and the European Union.
He has downplayed any desire to return to politics in Ireland, where one of the worst economic downturns in Europe has helped shatter many reputations at the top of business and politics.
Sutherland was awarded an honorary knighthood in 2004.
(editing by John Stonestreet)