Lloyds List: Royal Dutch Shell merger voting date fixed
Martyn Wingrove
May 20, 2005
SHAREHOLDERS of Royal Dutch Petroleum and Shell Transport will finally vote on merging the group into one entity next month and benefit from a $3bn-$5bn share buyback programme.
The Anglo-Dutch group is unifying its management and ownership to form Royal Dutch Shell following last year’s oil reserves scandal and after calls from leading shareholders to improve corporate governance.
The previous company went through a rough period last year as it slashed more than a quarter of its booked oil reserves and sacked chairman Philip Watts and its head of exploration and production.
New chairman Jeroen van der Veer came in and promised reform back in October. It has taken six months to publish details of how the group will be unified.
Mr van der Veer will become chief executive of Royal Dutch Shell, which will have a primary listing in London with secondary listings in Amsterdam and New York.
The unification will reflect the 60% ownership by Royal Dutch Petroleum’s shareholders and the whole group will continue its $3bn-$5bn buyback programme, focusing mostly on the Dutch shares, from July.
Its head office will be in The Hague but the main London offices, outside Waterloo station, will continue to manage global downstream operations, said a spokeswoman.
‘We have been encouraged by the widespread support of shareholders since the unification proposals were initially announced in October last year,’ said Mr van der Veer.
‘We look forward to our shareholders formally voting on the final proposals on June 28.’
The two separate companies will hold their annual meetings in London and The Hague on that date.
The group said: ‘The transaction will result in one parent company with one board, one chairman (Aad Jacobs) and one chief executive.’
It said the unification would deliver benefits including increased clarity and simplicity of governance, increased management efficiency and accountability.
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.
