Shell shareholders have agreed to move their headquarters to the UK

Shell logo at the Bernice refinery in the Dutch city of Rotterdam on November 15, 2021 – ANP / AFP

Shares of hydrocarbon company Shell voted by a majority this Friday (10) in favor of moving the group’s headquarters from the Netherlands to the United Kingdom and removing ‘Royal Dutch’ from its name.

Andrew McKenzie, chairman of the board of directors, praised in an official document the “strong support of shareholders” who voted 99.77% in favor of the proposals at a meeting in Rotterdam.

The group will therefore relocate its financial residence and senior management, including CEO Ben von Burden, to London. The company will have 8,500 employees in the Netherlands.

The move “will strengthen Shell’s competitiveness and accelerate partner agreements and implement its strategy of becoming a zero net-emitting energy company by 2050 in line with the partnership,” the panel said in a statement.

Europe’s largest energy company wants to simplify its structure and align its tax settlement with the UK, where it is registered.

In addition, the change made headlines in November, and the group guarantees that the transition to zero emissions will allow the company to accelerate.

In the end “multiple factors” were taken into account, McKenzie said.

One of them was the Dutch government’s abandonment of a plan to abolish the dividend tax, he agreed.

But he denied that the move was triggered by a Dutch court ruling earlier this year that Shell should reduce its emissions.

The company was formed in 1907. According to local newspapers, the transaction will cost the Dutch government billions of euros in tax revenue.