The world's third largest oil and gas company, Royal Dutch Shell Group, is to finally become officially one company after shareholders of its Dutch and English parent companies voted to support full unification.

Royal Dutch and Shell came together in 1907 and since then has been operated essentially as one company. However, throughout this time the energy outfit has had two separate parent entities, Shell Transport & Trading Co. Ltd., which holds 40%, and Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., which holds 60%.

Following a vote at a shareholder meeting on June 28, which saw 97.4% of shareholders in the Netherlands and 96.38% in London vote for unification, the two parent companies have resolved to form one united entity called Royal Dutch Shell PLC.

The new structure will be defined by the creation of one supervisory board, which will be located in London, although its tax home will be in The Hague, Netherlands. Shareholder will receive a straight one-for-one stock exchange in the new entity, which will begin trading on July 20.

The fully unified company with its new unified board will now be looking to implement strong, defined leadership to avoid future recurrences of recent problems, such as the several times restated reserve estimates.