Daily Telegraph: Royal Dutch rebels in the spotlight: “The Association of Private Client Investment Managers and Stockbrokers yesterday shed light on the number of rebel British investors in Royal Dutch Petroleum who are refusing to accept the terms of the merger with Shell Transport and Trading.”: Saturday 3 September 2005

By Christopher Hope (Filed: 03/09/2005)

The Association of Private Client Investment Managers and Stockbrokers yesterday shed light on the number of rebel British investors in Royal Dutch Petroleum who are refusing to accept the terms of the merger with Shell Transport and Trading.

A stubborn rump of 1.3pc of holders in Royal Dutch had failed to accept the merger because British holders of the stock have had to pay a large capital gains tax bill on their holding as a result.

Shell has always maintained that it has no idea about the identity of British holders in Royal Dutch because the stock was held in nominee accounts.

Last month, the company asked the association to provide details of the "characteristics" of the rebel shareholders. Yesterday it told Shell it had identified 348 "refuseniks" controlling 2m shares, worth £36.5m, who were refusing to accept the terms.

APCIMS also said that there were another 2,000 holders in Royal Dutch had felt they had to pay the tax bill because they had accepted the terms of the merger.

Meanwhile, Angela Knight, the chief executive of APCIMS added: "We think there are more we don't know about."

Shell officials told the association that they would work on an offer next week for the rebels, which could include a more tax efficient proposal, which will be put to Shell's main board meeting later this month.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2005/09/03/cndutch03.xml

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