Consolidating the consolidator

Stuart Reid reflects on a difficult year

'It's over, and can't be helped, and that's one consolation, as they always say in Turkey, when they cut the wrong man's head off,' says Sam Weller in Charles Dickens's The Pickwick Papers. Some say a similar sentiment prevails in the boardrooms of the so-called consolidators. Well, yes and no.

Recessionary 2009 is a far cry from the heady days of 2007 and 2008. At Bluefin, we are looking long and hard at what we have bought and how we complete the task of bringing together 16 separate