The Independent: Shell launches $5bn share buy-back plan
“Shell hopes its restructuring programme will help put the reserves scandal behind it. It has made settlements worth £137m with the US and UK financial regulators and recently agreed to pay $90m in damages to a group of US employee shareholders who had brought a class action against the oil giant. There remain a further two shareholder lawsuits in the US, while both the Dutch markets regulator, the ASM, and Euronext are still investigating the scandal.”
Thursday 11 August 2005
By Damian Reece
Royal Dutch Shell is to continue the restructuring programme triggered by last year’s reserves scandal by launching a share buy-back programme worth up to $5bn.
The company has merged its old Netherlands-based Royal Dutch operation with the UK-based Shell Transport & Trading to create a unified business.
A lack of management clarity and a complicated ownership structure had been blamed in part for last year’s crisis, when the company was forced to admit it had misled investors by overstating the amount of its oil reserves.
The drama resulted in the departure of its chairman, Sir Philip Watts, who is still in dispute with the Financial Services Authority over his role in the affair.
The unified company – named Royal Dutch Shell, with its headquarters in The Hague but its main stockmarket listing in London – said yesterday that its buy-back programme would be at the upper end of its $3bn-$5bn range, thanks to strong cash generation in the first half of this year.
Shareholders in Royal Dutch and Shell Transport & Trading swapped their old shares for new A and B shares respectively. Yesterday the company said that it expected to buy back more A shares than B shares, considering the prevailing market price and relative tax treatment of the A and B shares. Both classes of share rose 1.41 per cent.
Separately, it announced that it had received acceptances for 98.7 per cent of its old Royal Dutch shares and was proceeding with a de-listing from the Euronext Amsterdam stock exchange. The last day of dealing will be 30 September.
Shell hopes its restructuring programme will help put the reserves scandal behind it. It has made settlements worth £137m with the US and UK financial regulators and recently agreed to pay $90m in damages to a group of US employee shareholders who had brought a class action against the oil giant.
There remain a further two shareholder lawsuits in the US, while both the Dutch markets regulator, the ASM, and Euronext are still investigating the scandal.
The company now has a single board, stockmarket listing and chief executive.
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.
