Royal Dutch Shell is not ruling out moving its headquarters from the Netherlands to Britain, the oil company’s chief executive Ben van Beurden said in a Dutch newspaper interview published on Saturday.
Anglo-Dutch consumer products giant Unilever said last month it plans to ditch its dual Anglo-Dutch legal structure and create a single entity in Britain. Van Beurden did not explicitly say Shell wants to move its headquarters, het Financieele Dagblad said.
“You always need to keep thinking,” Shell’s Van Beurden told the newspaper. “Nothing is permanent and of course we will look at the business climate. But moving your headquarters is not a trivial measure. You cannot think too lightly about that.”
A Shell spokesman confirmed the CEO’s comments to Reuters and said the company was looking at ways to simplify its dual structure. Shell has a complex Anglo-Dutch holding structure with a tax residency and headquarters in the Netherlands and a registered office in Britain.