Member Info for Bachatanut

hi all. i'm also a long suffering lth. been following this board for several years and would like to say thank you to all contributors. decided it's high time i lost my "posting virginity", so here goes.

years ago i had shares in the now defunct enterprise inns (eti.l). as i remember it at the time they had loads of debt and instead of using the strong cash flow during the good times to reduce the debt they paid a generous dividend and consistently bought back shares. they reduced the number of shares in issue quite considerably and after a while i realised that as far as i could make out they were not changing their executive share options (referred to as essos?) and so in effect they were "gearing up" the potential gains they could make because they were increasing the percentage of total shares over which they held options. they didn't gain as far as i remember coz the good times ended and it went pear shaped. (managed to make my losses back on the "j-curve" effect when the share price crashed.)

my point is this: my observation of life and **** (not-so?) sapiens is that people will run things as far as they are able for their own maximum benefit. thus i would suggest that there are two different forces at work when bt et alia discuss the promised return to share holders.

1) some of them have very large share holdings and so would benefit greatly from a cash dividend, but this would be attenuated by immediate tax liabilities.

2) some of them don't have such large share holdings but will have share options and so if the number of shares in issue were (say) halved would, as far as i can see, in effect see a doubling of their share options if they stayed the same in number and any tax liability is in the future.

3) some of them have both of the above.

4) number 1) above is a bird in the hand and number 2) is two in the bush (i.e. look at what happened at eti.l).

my prediction therefor is that the return will be a combination of cash per share and buy back.