BARRON’S
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By NAUREEN MALIK
With improving fundamentals and a 7% dividend yield, Royal Dutch Shell looks like an appealing investment.
IN THE WORLD OF BIG OIL, Royal Dutch Shell is often treated like the elephant in the room that investors want to ignore.
Shell’s questionable reputation isn’t entirely undeserved. Europe’s largest integrated oil company has been beleaguered by high costs as it struggled to increase oil-and-gas reserves after the 2004 accounting scandal forced the company to write down reserves.
Those woes were compounded by the deteriorating economic conditions, OPEC quota cuts and Nigerian tensions that disrupted production.
So it’s not a surprise that Shell’s U.S.-listed shares (ticker: RDSA) are underperforming peers’. Closing at $49.07 Wednesday, the class A American depositary receipts are down 39% over the past 12 months. That compares to the Dow Jones U.S. Integrated Oil & Gas Index’s 29% decline and Exxon Mobil’s (XOM) 21% decline during that period.
But Shell’s fundamentals are improving. And with a stable 7% dividend yield that is triple Exxon’s, Shell is paying its investors handsomely to wait for that turnaround.
Crude-oil prices are rallying and operating costs should continue to fall over the next several months as work is completed on higher-priced contracts.
Shell is a particularly attractive based on a longer-term rebound in natural gas. It is the world’s largest player in liquefied natural gas (LNG). For the first time more than half of its production came from natural gas (50.6%) in the first quarter. Natural gas made up more than a third of Exxon’s 2008 production.
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.
