Two years on from the biggest shareholder revolt on pay the London market has seen and things are getting back to normal at Royal Dutch Shell.
Shell had its moment back in 2004 with its reserves scandal but from 2005 embarked on a reconstruction involving a big increase in investment. Photo: GETTY IMAGES
By Damian Reece, Head of Business 6:10AM GMT 16 Mar 2011Peter Voser, the chief executive, earned £4.8m in 2010, four times as much as his rival Bob Dudley at BP.
But then the companies’ fortunes could not have been more different over the past couple of years. BP workers were killed yet again after a fatal safety lapse and the company’s Macondo well created a fissure in the earth’s surface that spewed pollution into the Gulf of Mexico.
BP’s shares have underperformed the All Share by 60pc as a result while Shell has lagged by 22pc, although it has outperformed its oil peers by 9pc. BP has underperformed the same group by 30pc. Shell’s total market capitalisation across its two classes of share is £132bn and BP £86bn – a gap I doubt Dudley will close in his time as chief executive and it will be beyond his successor too.