Ann: Proposed Consolidation of Capital, page-41

Personally, I have always disliked consolidations as they hide past failures, but I understand that sometimes practicalities dictate a consolidation. I suspect that the reason why they don't work so well is that the very companies that undertake a consolidation are doing poorly and if past performance is any indicator of future performance, the poor performance continues on. I can think of some companies (DYL is one that comes to mind), where it is a good idea to clean up the shares on issue, as North American investors shy away from high share count, low share price type companies. DYL has gone from strength to strength, but I can think of others (recent TOE) where it goes from bad to worse, not because of the consolidation just the lack of leadership.