I cannot remember when the trend first started. Perhaps about 4 or 5 years ago. But it seems now to be something of a trend for the larger quoted companies to "consolidate" their neat 25 p ord shares into shares like "16+231/357p ord". What's that all about?
Centrica took it to extremes. Not happy with 5+5/9p ord, on 25 Oct 2005 they decided to convert to 6+14/81p ord.
The rationale is probably highly complex, but just out of curiosity I would be interested to know what drives this, and why is it a relatively newly prolific phenomenon.
Clint Westwood
