 LONDON
- Oil giant Royal Dutch Shell has announced that it plans to
by out the remaining shares that it does not already own in
its Royal Dutch arm thereby taking the final steps towards
the unification of its UK and Dutch arms in July.Currently, Royal Dutch Shell holds 98.5 percent of the erstwhile Royal Dutch. After its merger with Britain's Shell Transport and Trading in July, the firm said yesterday that the remaining shareholders have the option of either taking cash or equivalent new shares of the merged entity. Following the reserves overbooking scandal last year, Royal Dutch Shell had opted to unify its UK and Dutch arms in a bid to restore confidence in the company. The proposed buyout of the remaining shares would be completed by merging Royal Dutch with a holding subsidiary Shell Petroleum NV. The company said that it expected to complete the buyout by the end of this year. The final terms of the deal would only be revealed in the fourth quarter of the year, Royal Dutch Shell said. This announcement is great news to
around 400 UK investors who had refused to sell their shares
since they would have had to pay 40 percent capital gains
tax. But another 1,700 residents in the UK were not so lucky
as they had already sold their shares and paid the tax as
well. Angela Knight, chief executive of the Association of
Private Client Investment Managers and Stockbrokers (APCIMS)
said, "We are pleased with Shell's announcement. For the
refusniks who held on to their Royal Dutch shares there is
now something better on offer. There is no reason why Shell
could not have done this at the start and if they had, then
it could have saved a lot of heartache. It's a victory for
those who refused the offer because it would leave them with
a huge tax bill." |