Daily Telegraph: They’re trying to prise Shell open but its likely to simply clam up
17 June 2004
We don’t know what goes on in Shell board meetings, and the company reckons it’s none of our business anyway. Yesterday’s, though, should have been a cracker. With copies of the White Knight letter in front of them, it must have finally dawned on the directors that they could not, after all, go on treating the shareholders as irritants in the way of running the business.
The letter, fired across the Atlantic to the FT, is signed by Ted White and Eric Knight, representing two big funds with shares in Shell, and merely asks the company to tell the shareholders something useful at the annual meeting a week on Monday.
They are not asking for inside information, merely to be told who is carrying out Shell’s promised re-examination of the board and management structures and what are the terms of reference of the review. This is routine enough for most sensible boards in difficulties, but it’s revolutionary for the closed world of Shell’s management.
The company now employs two outside PR consultancies to complement its internal team – surely a sign of corporate stress – and it has, reluctantly, promised to say something sensible ahead of the meeting. This is a giant step for Shellkind. It could even be a giant step for the big institutional shareholders.
Annual meetings are traditionally silly set-pieces, where a couple of eccentric private shareholders are given patronising answers by a chairman on a remote dais. This one could be different. The voting will hardly matter, since the guilty men have already gone, and the double-headed structure with Royal Dutch effectively makes Shell bid-proof (as if its size was not protection enough).
There is scope for a genuine debate, with meaningful contributions both from shareholders and the directors. What sort of management structure is appropriate for a big company which needs to respond quickly? How can the interests of the company and the shareholders be better aligned? Has the Royal Dutch/Shell arrangement reached the end of its useful life?
This week Sir Richard Sykes called for a holistic approach to restoring trust in savings and investments. No company has a broader base of shareholders, direct and indirect, than Shell, so this meeting provides an ideal opportunity for both sides to practise what he’s preaching. Don’t hold your breath.
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.
