Consolidation30 Oct 2006 15:00
jgn71, I'm afraid that consolidation of a company's share capital would not necessarily mean that the post-consolidation share price is a straight forward multiple of the original diluted share price.A number of factors are taken into consideration, eg. market cap, the price/earnings ratio.Most companies with vast numbers of shares in Western markets, particularly AIM shares, consolidate because it encourages more active trading of their shares and thereby share price growth.
In most cases a company will wait until its SP is at a reasonable level before consolidating. A consolidation announcement may result if a lot of selling before and after consolidation because shareholders want to avoid losing profit pre- and then want to buy the shares back cheaper post-. If you look at most 'biofuel'companies they have roughly no more than 50 million shares. The worst case senario is that GTL consolidates 1 for 50. I think its more likely that a 1 for 15 will occur resulting in about 175 million shares at possibly 80 pence each. If this happens I reckon GTL's SP will benefit greatly. There is increasing interest in ethanol, even Richard Branson wants to invest into ethanol production.The US biofuels market is huge and set to grow. I reckon that GTL could be 15-20p proir to consolidation (which may not happen for some time yet)and grow to well over a pound post.Have a look at Sterling Energy's(SEY) share price and number of shares.