 | Why Sell?
The world has not run out of gas. It has just run out of cheap gas. The first oil company to act in a big way on this change is Shell Oil. Shell realized it can sell all its gasoline production without managing "franchise retailers." All they need are "Open Retialers" with long term "Product Agreements." Let the retailer own the land and equipment and assume all the environmental risk. Shell ends up making more money with less costs and liabilities. Most importantly: "When Shell gets fined it pays millions, when a retailer gets fined they pay thousands" so Shell is in a hurry to sell all its stations before: All the problems become fully known and the value of their stations greatly reduced, - They get fined millions of dollars,
- The containment system has to be completely replaced, and
- Before anyone can intervene before Shell clandestinely sheds its environmental responsibilities.
"Bad Faith"
What got the author of SeeitReal.com's attention, was Shell having its retailers show up at Grubb & Ellis real estate offices in California without telling them the purpose of the meeting. Shell then had the retailers sign "Non-Disclosure Agreements." All fair and good except these agreements prevented the retailer "from talking with anyone other than an attorney or an accountant" (the only two professionals Shell could not exclude without getting sued). The retailers were handed a "Retailer Offer to Purchase Agreement" and had 10 days to make decision whether they wanted to buy their service stations or not. Shell handed the agreements to the retailers in order to "run the clock" on the ten days, the absolute minimum number of days to avoid claims of "bad faith." But here is where the "bad faith" really kicks in. Shell routinely used major holidays and weekends to frustrate any "due diligence" the retailer could get from a lawyer or an accountant. Shell also routinely did not provide the retailers with a copy of the Non-Disclosure agreements. It was this "non-traditional" manner in the way Shell was conducting its business, and the "bad faith" of not providing its retailers a copy of the Non-Disclosure Agreement along with the exclusion of anyone other than attorneys or accountants, that got this author to do further research and discovery. What I found was: 1) a mass clandestine sell off of all Shell service stations, 2) an ongoing EPA investigation concerning high gasoline containment failures at Shell service stations and 3) a less than full disclosure of that problem to Shell's retailers in Shell's "Offer to Purchase Agreement." If this "bad faith" isn't enough, Shell's President, David Sexton, refuses to adequately address and correct the environmental problems at the former Texaco stations as it would interfere with the mass sell off strategy Shell is already 2/3rds completed with (that he came up with as VP for Strategy & Development). What a mess. A copy of Shell's divestiture documents is available to the press. Contact: RA@SeeitReal.com (This and every page is subject to The Disclaimer) |