Picture the scene: Tony Hayward, chief executive of BP, gets in a lift with yours truly and answers my opportunistic question about a takeover of Shell with an unambiguous “it’s very likely”. Just for good measure he adds that BP would probably have to pay £75bn to snap up its rival.
Rio Tinto would consider formal Chinese offer
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/12/05/cnrio105.xml
A day or so after I report this conversation, causing a minor explosion in the share prices of both companies, Dr Hayward tells a rival newspaper “I did not say this. It is a fabrication of the media”.
If this sounds implausible, it’s because it won’t ever happen (and just to be absolutely clear, it didn’t happen. I made it up).
But replace BP with China’s biggest steel company Baosteel, Tony Hayward with Xu Lejiang, its chairman, and Shell with Rio Tinto and it is exactly what did happen earlier this week.
Li Qingyu, industry editor of the 21st Century Business Herald, must have thought all his Christmases had come at once when he struck journalistic gold in a Beijing elevator.
He was probably less chuffed two days later when he was accused of making it up in the pages of the more official Shanghai Securities News.
Dealing with China presents many cultural and linguistic challenges for British businesses. But this farcical breach of normal protocol shows that China plays by a different rulebook. As its tentacles reach deeper into our business backyard, we urgently need a translation.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/12/07/ccom107.xml
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.
