The Independent: Private Investor: Why do institutional shareholders get special treatment? “the same disinformation for all”
By Sean O’Grady
03 July 2004
I regret to say that I did not turn up at the Shell annual general meeting on Monday. I do wish I had. It sounds like some of my fellow small shareholders made a spirited attempt to make the board explain what has been going on at the company lately. A Mr John Kennedy seems to have been a particularly impressive have-a-go hero. According to reports, he put this question to the board of directors: “I am quite sure you were in consultation with institutional shareholders, so why were private shareholders left out? I had to rely on the press!”.
Oh dear. What has the world come to when we have to rely on the press? I’m being facetious. Mr Kennedy made a valid point.
I don’t suppose there is a way that the body of private investors as a whole can be allowed the sort of briefings that the big pension funds receive as a matter of course, but then again perhaps that is an argument for these large institutions not being offered privileged information ahead of other investors. After all, one of the basic principles of a fair market is that the same information should be provided to all.
Shell only seemed to honour this ideal while it was providing the same disinformation to all, a slightly different idea. OK, that’s a cheap crack, but when you’re having to pay for former chief executive Philip Watt’s leaving present of £1m, as we, the owners of Shell are, then you have to make some economies. Shell shares are back from the brink, at 410p, but have yielded shareholders miserable returns over the past five years, although they no longer seem to be underperforming BP (more to do with the latter’s recent relative weakness than anything else).
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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.
