Oil company Shell has criticised protesters who disrupted its annual shareholder meeting in London.
Security guards dragged away activists who tried to storm the stage at the event.
Shell chairman Andrew Mackenzie was unable to start the meeting for more than an hour as dozens of protesters stood up, chanting and singing “Shut down Shell” and “Go to hell, Shell.”
“We've heard this point many times now,” he told the protesters.
“Wouldn't it be nice to have this debate rather than saying the same thing over and over again?”
In a statement Shell criticised the demonstrators and accused them of not being interested in “constructive engagement”.
“We respect people’s right to express their point of view and welcome any constructive engagement on our strategy and the energy transition,” Shell said.
“However, yet again protesters have shown that they are not interested in constructive engagement.
“We agree that society needs to take action on climate change.
“Shell has a clear target to become a net-zero emissions energy business by 2050 and we believe our climate targets are aligned with the more ambitious goal of the Paris Agreement on climate change: to limit the increase in the global average temperature to 1.5ºC above pre-industrial levels.”
The activists, who included members of Greenpeace and Extinction Rebellion, say Shell and other fossil fuel firms are making record profits at the cost of the environment.
Like other oil companies, Shell posted bumper profits this year as global oil and natural gas prices soared after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
In February, Shell said its profit for 2022 was a record $39.9 billion.
“Shell is continuing to drill new oil and gasfields here in the UK and around the world in some of the most biodiverse regions in the Philippines and in the Niger Delta,” said Carina Manitius, 27, a protester from the group Fossil Free London.
“So we’re here to say business as usual cannot continue and we’re going to shut you down.”
Mr Mackenzie said he believed the company was aligned with the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change.
“I think we can be Paris-aligned, and we are. You glossed over in many ways the tremendous progress we’ve made with our scope one and two absolute emissions,” he said in response to an activist shareholder.
“And I would make the same points about the progress that we’ve made on cutting methane emissions. As you know, that’s a very important greenhouse gas as well.
“But the other part of being Paris-aligned is to enable the whole of society to change.
“And we enable the whole of society to change towards a lower carbon way of being by owning customers and by working with them and to offer them lower and lower carbon alternatives to the fuel that they require to go about their lives.”
The disruption at London's ExCel centre came after the police were called to a number of
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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Paatal Lok season two
Directors: Avinash Arun, Prosit Roy
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