THE HAGUE | BY KAROLIN SCHAPS: Wed Jan 27, 2016 1:56pm GMT
Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) shareholders approved its $50 billion takeover of BG Group (BG.L) on Wednesday, clearing the last main hurdle to creating the biggest liquefied natural gas (LNG) trader in the world.
BG shareholders are also expected to approve one of the biggest deals in the energy sector in the past decade at a meeting on Thursday, a vote that would allow the two oil and gas companies to merge on Feb. 15.
Few investors have openly challenged the deal’s strategic benefits for Shell. But with oil languishing near $30 a barrel and only a slow recovery forecast, some had questioned the viability of a deal that would increase Shell’s debt burden.
Shares in BG were up 1.3 percent at 1325 GMT (8:25 a.m. ET), while Shell’s B shares traded 0.5 percent lower, both outperforming a 0.9 percent fall in the European oil and gas index .SXEP and valuing Shell’s cash and share offer at about $50 billion.
“Our immediate focus is on the successful completion of the transaction and we now await the results of tomorrow’s BG shareholder vote,” Shell Chief Executive Ben van Beurden said.
In the vote at the meeting in The Hague, 83 percent of Shell shareholders voted in favor of the deal with 17 percent against. More than 40 percent of Shell’s shareholders also own about half of BG’s stock, according to Reuters data.
If the deal is approved by all shareholders Shell will become the world’s most powerful LNG trader and gain access to valuable oil resources off Brazil and in Australia.
Some shareholders at Wednesday’s meeting had expressed concern about Shell overpaying for BG, based on the near halving of oil prices since the deal was announced on April 8 last year.
Shell Chief Financial Officer Simon Henry said on Wednesday that every $10 decline in the price of a barrel of oil shaves $4 billion off the combined Shell-BG cashflow.
The companies expect to save about $3.5 billion in overlapping costs following their merger.
Other shareholders said they were concerned about Shell betting more heavily on fossil fuels through the BG deal, rather than investing in renewable energy.
“We have voted against this deal because we think there is a much better way to spend billions: in renewable energy,” Mark van Baal, founder of Follow This, a group of Shell shareholders supporting green energy with about 5 million euros of shares.
(Editing by David Clarke)
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.
