“For Shell to have a reputation for reneging on such a significant handshake as this due to a short-term collapse in the oil price would be disastrous. For better or worse, this deal will happen.”
JIM ARMITAGE: Wed, 23 Dec 2015
Sleigh bells have been heard over BG and Shell as their shares staged a modest Santa Claus rally.
The jumps were a tentative suggestion Shell’s takeover of the former British Gas exploration arm will go ahead despite the doubters.
In case you’ve been in space with Major Tim, I should explain the deal’s critics say it makes no sense at current bombed-out oil prices.
Yesterday afternoon, Shell issued its offer documents including a welter of mathematical claims aimed at assuaging such fears.
Amid all the numbers, one stood out to me: £106 million.
That is the amount of cash Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, Rothschild and other advisers on the deal stand to pocket. But only if it goes through.
They constitute a hugely powerful army of cheerleaders pushing Shell and its shareholders to press on regardless. Don’t underestimate their influence with directors and fund managers.
It’s not just in the Square Mile that Shell would lose face if it walked away.
Big oil companies thrive or die on their ability to do multi-billion dollar deals with governments. Deals that span decades and stick, whatever the economic weather.
For Shell to have a reputation for reneging on such a significant handshake as this due to a short-term collapse in the oil price would be disastrous. For better or worse, this deal will happen.
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: 
MORE DETAILS:
A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
