July 29, 2021
Royal Dutch Shell plc (the ‘company’) today announces the commencement of share buybacks as part of its move to the next phase of its capital allocation framework, which includes shareholder distributions in a range of 20-30% of CFFO. The company has entered into an irrevocable, non-discretionary arrangement with a broker to enable the purchase of A ordinary shares and/or B ordinary shares for a period up to and including December 29, 2021. The aggregate maximum consideration for the purchase of A ordinary shares and/or B ordinary shares is $2.0 billion, of which it is expected that more than half will have been completed by the company’s Q3 results, which are scheduled for October 28, 2021. The purpose of the share buybacks is to reduce the issued share capital of the company. All shares repurchased as part of this arrangement will be cancelled.
The maximum number of ordinary shares which may be purchased by the company under this arrangement is 780,000,000, which is the maximum pursuant to the authority granted by shareholders at the company's 2021 Annual General Meeting1. The shares bought back under this arrangement will be whichever of the A ordinary shares and/or B ordinary shares traded in the GBP denomination is economically the least expensive on a given trading day.
The broker will make its trading decisions in relation to the company's securities independently of the company. The share buybacks will be carried out on the London Stock Exchange and/or on BATS and/or on Chi-X and will be effected within certain pre-set parameters.