BP�s two-year search to fill one of Britain�s top corporate jobs ended yesterday with the surprise appointment of Swede Carl-Henric Svanberg as chairman.

BP's two-year search to fill one of Britain's top corporate jobs ended yesterday with the surprise appointment of Swede Carl-Henric Svanberg as chairman.

Svanberg, who is currently chief executive of the Swedish telecoms company Ericsson, will take over from Peter Sutherland in January.

He will join BP after a seven-year tenure as Ericsson's chief executive and as chairman of its joint venture Sony Ericsson. Svanberg, 57, will be based in London and will devote the majority of his time to BP business.

The appointment ends a fraught recruitment process at BP. Sutherland had expected to stand down late last year or earlier this year.

BP initially selected miner Rio Tinto's then chairman Paul Skinner, a former Royal Dutch Shell executive, to fill the job.

However, Skinner withdrew following investor unease over Rio's plan to sell $19.5bn in assets and bonds to Chinese state-owned aluminium group Chinalco, BP sources said.

Skinner stepped down from his Rio role in March and earlier this month Rio dropped the Chinalco deal.

That debacle poisoned the BP role for some potential candidates, especially UK businessmen, some executives said, and limited the options open to the company, which had hoped to select someone with oil industry experience.

Svanberg said he was "hugely excited" about joining the energy industry. He added: "BP is a recognised world leader in the energy sector and it's a great privilege to be invited to lead its board."

City experts said the appointment was unexpected. Paul Anderson, a US mining and energy executive, had been seen as one of the frontrunners for the role of chairman. He is currently on the board of giant mining group BHP Billiton and worked for two decades at US-based Duke Energy.

The search for the new chairman was conducted by the BP board's nominations committee led by Sir Ian Prosser. The other committee members were Sir William Castell, DeAnne Julius and Sutherland. Prosser said the process had been worldwide and exhaustive, producing candidates from the UK, Europe and the United States.

BP chief executive Tony Hayward said: "Peter Sutherland has been an outstanding chairman, guiding the company through one of the most successful periods in its history. He will be a hard act to follow.

"But I am sure Carl-Henric will be a worthy successor. He is a businessman of international stature who is recognised for his transformation of Ericsson. Our shared views on many aspects of global business give me great confidence that we will work very effectively together on the next phase of BP's progress."

Shares in BP closed 0.75p lower at 476.25p after the City digested news of Svanberg's appointment.

Svanberg joined Ericsson in 2003 with the company struggling in the face of losses and restructuring. Since then it has grown market share in telecoms equipment, while becoming the world's fifth largest software company.

Ericsson chairman Michael Treschow said: "With Carl-Henric Svanberg's leadership, Ericsson has become the industry's most profitable company and its market position has been tremendously strengthened.

"With Svanberg, the industry's most successful strategy has been developed and implemented."

The new BP chairman, who is from the north of Sweden, is married and has three children.

Ericsson said its financial chief Hans Vestberg will become the new chief executive when Svanberg moves.

Vestberg, 44, will take over the position on January 1. He has worked with Ericsson since 1991 and has been the company's chief financial officer since 2007.