Financial Times: Suez thanks lucky star
“Gérard Mestrallet could not have picked a better moment to buy Shell’s interests in two Belgian gas companies.”
By Paul Betts
Published: September 9 2004
It may be coincidence, but Gérard Mestrallet could not have picked a better moment to buy Shell’s interests in two Belgian gas companies.
The deal is part of the Suez boss’s new strategy of refocusing resources to boost his European electricity and gas operations to challenge, above all, his two big French state rivals: Electricité de France and Gaz de France. After buying stakes in smaller French electricity companies, he is strengthening his gas business to take advantage of energy liberalisation.
All this on the same day as the French government attempted to resolve the internal drama at EdF by replacing its chairman with the chairman of GdF. Paris has destabilised both its electricity utility and its gas company, now deprived of the man who ran it successfully for 17 years. Mr Mestrallet can thank his lucky star.
Barely a year ago, Mr Mestrallet also seemed on the ejector seat. Like EdF’s dethroned chairman François Roussely, he landed Suez in a financial mess because of rash international acquisitions. Like Mr Roussely, he subsequently retrenched on his core domestic business with massive asset sales.
For all the pressure put on him, Mr Mestrallet’s shareholders allowed him to pursue his turnround, with Suez now back in profit. Mr Roussely’s political masters did the opposite, indulging in intrigue and power struggles. The moral: it is easier to run a private business, even with awkward shareholders, than a nationalised one – and the pay is infinitely better.
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.
