Shell’s £16bn loss as pandemic hits
ROYAL Dutch Shell has announced one of the largest losses in British business history, crashing £15.9billion into the red last year.
The lockdown and other control measures sent demand for fuel from road and aviation customers plummeting, as well as the oil price.
Takings at Shell’s petrol forecourts also suffered as people were told to work from home.
Prior to the pandemic, the oil and gas company made an annual profit of £11.6billion.
Its nosedive into the red was accompanied by a collapse in 2020 revenues – down 47.6 per cent to £132.2billion.
Shell’s loss is so large that it is only eclipsed by banks such as Royal Bank of Scotland, which came close to collapse during the credit crunch and the global financial crisis of 2007-8.
Despite the huge scale of its losses, Shell said it will still hand shareholders billions by paying a fourth-quarter dividend of 12.2p per share.
That takes its annual payout to investors to 47.8p per share, which will cost the company £3.8billion in total.
For 2019, Shell’s dividend was worth £1.37 per share, or approximately £11billion.
Despite the pressure on its finances, Shell chief executive Ben van Beurden said: “We are committed to our progressive dividend policy and expect to grow our US dollar dividend per share by around 4 per cent as of the first quarter 2021.”
Elsewhere, BT said that its third-quarter profits had fallen 17 per cent to £1.6billion.
Revenues for the three months to the end of December were down 7 per cent to £16.1billion as the pandemic affected demand at both its consumer and enterprise units.
Sales were also lower due to the disposal of businesses in France, Spain and Latin America. Chief executive Philip Jansen said the results were within expectations.
On the march...JD Sports has £1billion war chest
TRAINER chain JD Sports has raked in £464.2million from selling new shares to investors to boost its overseas expansion.
The Bury-based business now has a £1billion war chest to fund acquisitions.
The top-up came through a placing of shares equivalent to six per cent of the firm.
It comes days after JD bought US sportswear retailer DTLR Villa for £360million, its second Stateside deal in as many months.
JD Sports, which is valued at £8billion, is believed to have Eastern Europe and South Africa in its sights.
Analysts at broker Peel Hunt said: “The balance sheet is strong anyway but some deals need acquirers to move quickly and the bigger the war chest the better.”
The company, which sponsors world heavyweight boxing champion Anthony Joshua, started its expansion outside of Europe in 2015, when it entered into a joint venture in Malaysia.
Since then it has expanded its presence around the world and as a result, its annual profits have grown from £100million to more than £439million.