Financial Times: Shell merger poses new risk
Tuesday 28 June 2005
By Paul Betts
Royal Dutch/Shell is expected to approve on Tuesday a corporate revolution by merging its two separately quoted arms into a single company headquartered in the Netherlands with its primary listing in London.
This is likely to double the Anglo-Dutch major’s weighting in the FTSE 100 index. In so doing, it will concentrate further the index of the UK’s leading 100 companies around a handful of big caps, reflecting a growing European trend contrasting with Wall Street and Tokyo.
Nestlé is another example. The Swiss multinational is dismantling its global share network, leaving it with a listing only in Zurich and New York.
The weightings of the 10 largest companies in the CAC-40 now account for 60 per cent of the French blue-chip index, with oil group Total alone accounting for as much as 15 per cent.
In Germany too, the 10 largest companies make up 60 per cent of the HDAX 110’s total weighting.
As for the FTSE 100, the top 10 weigh 51 per cent and this before the expected doubling of Shell’s weighting, which will see the oil group join BP and HSBC in the top three.
In the US, big caps account for 39 per cent of the S&P100, while in Japan only 34 per cent.
The US Fidelity group warns concentration in Europe raises new risks for investors tracking indices as a safer way of playing the markets. With performance hinging increasingly on a small number of big caps, investors might as well opt for purportedly riskier stock picking.
This website and sisters royaldutchshellplc.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.
Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
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A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
