In the region the company plans to leverage their profitable light commercial van and pickup business while simultaneously reduce cost and improve capital efficiencies.
Van Beurden added: "Our focus will be on improving Shell's financial results, achieving better capital efficiency and on continuing to strengthen our operational performance and project delivery".
Substituting a financial derivative for a stock is known as a "stock replacement strategy," and is used to improve overall capital efficiency.
By Buchanan's yardstick J.C. Penney looks good, improving its capital efficiency from 13.1 in the 12 months leading up to the January quarter to 16.1 in the period ending in April (see table "Other People's Money").
"We are making hard choices in our worldwide portfolio to improve Shell's capital efficiency," Van Beurden said.
At the time, China's rationale for promoting ABS was to improve credit market capital efficiency and transparency.
This process, even if done imperfectly, will motivate more optimal enterprise decisions and, over time, will dramatically improve IT's capital efficiency.
"This arrangement improves Devon's capital efficiency by recovering our land and drilling costs to date and by significantly reducing our future capital commitments," John Richels, Devon's president and chief executive, said in a statement.
He said that in a period of low earnings, companies were more inclined to improve profit margins and capital efficiency, which should eventually bolster returns.
Home Depot says its decision to abandon 36 new projects in 2008 "centers on the Company's capital efficiency model to improve free cash flow, provide stronger returns for the Company and invest in its existing stores to continue improving the customer experience".
