Business

Business

Shell announced a big change to its corporate structure, with plans to move its tax residency from the Netherlands to Britain, dump its dual-share structure and remove the legacy “Royal Dutch” from its legal name. The oil giant is under pressure to increase returns to investors. Relocating its tax base to Britain gives it more freedom on share buy-backs. Shell is keeping several big divisions, such as global upstream, in the Netherlands. Nevertheless the Dutch government said it was “unpleasantly surprised” by the news.

Toshiba laid out formal proposals to split into three publicly listed companies, a move that came soon after General Electric’s similar decision to split. The Japanese conglomerate wants to house its nuclear, infrastructure and engineering businesses in one company, create an asset-management firm that will oversee its tech holdings in another, and start a new company for its chips and small devices. Some shareholders want Toshiba to sell itself to a private-equity buyer instead.

Meanwhile, Johnson & Johnson, another huge conglomerate, said it would spin off its consumer-health division into a separate business, leaving it to focus on pharmaceuticals and medical devices.