ville, from my recollection, OZL was screamed at by the media, and shareholders on HC, at least, to "do something" with their cash- either return cash to SH'ers, or buy something. Returning cash to SH'ers was a pretty good thing to do, imo (not that I got that lot of $$$). That was probably about 6 months ago, and the markets were far more bullish. Had OZL bought anything then, they may have paid too much. SFR closed today @ $5.93, down 9.3%. One never knows if it will, in fact, return to the price OZL got its original amount for. Of course, if that happens, and the Ords/copper fall so hard, OZL management may be relieved they consolidated 10 for 1, as its own SP could look pretty shabby.
Re consolidation, the only thing I can think of, aside of institutional support (which OZL always had anyway- surely it should have to do with market cap- not SP), is to look respectable if taking over another company. What's done is done re the consolidation. I still take a zero off when calculating OZL's SP- I probably always will. :)
OZL Price at posting:
$9.43 Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held