Saint, Sinner… or Just Rich? Shell parks $40B of pensions with Goldman while the past keeps knocking

Shell—the greedy, ruthless, polluting oil giant and perennial sin stock—has found a fresh halo to borrow: a $40 billion outsourced pension mandate with Wall Street royalty. As Bloomberg reported, “Goldman Sachs Group Inc. won a $40 billion mandate from Shell Plc to oversee pension assets for the energy company, in one of the biggest outsourced deals of its kind.” That’s not satire; that’s the lede. Bloomberg. 

Goldman’s own one-minute victory lap says the quiet bit proudly: “The appointments mark one of the largest multi-national OCIO mandates awarded to date.” GSAM press page. 

Financial trade outlets piled on with the scale and mechanics—European pensions, a captive insurer, liability- and cash-flow-driven strategies, plus advice to North American plans—assets transitioning this year. See the FT, Pensions Age, Professional Pensions, and others if you enjoy reading about very large numbers moving between very large institutions. Financial Times • Pensions Age • Professional Pensions • AI-CIO. 

What this really signals (beyond “Goldman wins again”)

Yes, it’s a governance decision. But for a company whose past includes a 23% reserves overstatement and a trail of man-made earthquakes and oil-pollution litigation, a gleaming OCIO mandate also functions as social deodorant.

• Reserves scandal (2004): The U.S. SEC’s own words: “Shell overstated proved reserves… by 4.47 billion barrels of oil equivalent, or approximately 23%.” Penalty: $120 million. SEC press release. 

• Groningen, the man-made quakes: The Dutch Safety Board concluded: “Until the beginning of 2013, the safety of citizens in Groningen in relation to induced earthquakes had no influence on decision-making on the exploitation of the Groningen gas field.” That gas field? Operated for decades by NAM, the Shell–Exxon joint venture. DSB summary (PDF) • Reuters recap. 

• Nigeria, the clean-up that never ends: On 31 Aug 2025, UN human-rights experts published letters expressing “grave concern”, warning that majors—including Shell—divested “without transparency” and used “Nigeria… as an experiment for divestment without clean-up.” Amnesty summary with quotes • Leigh Day note. 

So yes, $40 billion parked with Goldman is good pension housekeeping. It’s also a reminder that the cheques keep clearing—even when the past is still litigating itself in open court.

Who underwrites the “ultimate sin stock”?

Despite the UN letters and decades of controversy, Big Finance remains loyal. Vanguard and BlackRock appear among Shell’s largest institutional holders in standard registries. Check the tables:

• Yahoo Finance — SHEL holders

• MarketScreener — Shareholders

  (You’ll see Vanguard entities and BlackRock entities right near the top.) 

A few inconvenient receipts (click through)

• Bloomberg: “Goldman… won a $40 billion mandate from Shell… in one of the biggest outsourced deals of its kind.”

  bloomberg.com. 

• Goldman Sachs AM: “The appointments mark one of the largest multi-national OCIO mandates awarded to date.”

  am.gs.com. 

• SEC (2004): “Overstated proved reserves… by 4.47 billion boe (≈23%).”

  sec.gov. 

• Dutch Safety Board (2015): “Until the beginning of 2013, the safety of citizens… had no influence on decision-making…”

  onderzoeksraad.nl (PDF). 

• UN experts / Amnesty (2025): “Nigeria… an experiment for divestment without clean-up.”

  amnesty.org. 

Disclaimer

Warning: satire ahead. The criticisms are pointed, the humour intentional, and the facts stubbornly real. Quotes are reproduced word-for-word from trusted sources. As for authorship—John Donovan and AI both claim credit, but the jury’s still out on who was really in charge.

This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, shellnews.net, and shellwikipedia.com, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.