Daily Mail (UK): Pound's fall blamed on Shell: “SHELL celebrated the historic unification of its two companies by pushing the pound to an 8-month low, a startling sign of its huge clout in the markets.”: Thursday Posted 21 July 2005

By Brian O'Connor

SHELL celebrated the historic unification of its two companies by pushing the pound to an 8-month low, a startling sign of its huge clout in the markets.

Sterling fell sharply against the euro, and then the dollar, as UK fund managers scrambled to buy Dutch shares to raise their holdings in the Anglo-Dutch giant, which today becomes one of the top two UK stocks, worth over lOpc of the Footsie 100 index.

Currency pundits said that this amounted to a large-scale switch from pounds into euros.

But Shell made no concession to 2,500 UK investors who face hefty capital gains tax bills.

They hold shares in Royal Dutch Petro¬leum. Like UK arm Shell Transport and Trading, it folds today into Royal Dutch Shell and should begin trading at over £18. STT fell 9p to 528p.

Only 91.69pc of RDP investors accepted the switch, below the 95pc minimum set by Shell, which later cut this to 75pc. UK rebels held on, fearing the huge tax bills.   

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