from diversification. To our larger and old-time shareholders sale of their stock was not a tempting choice because many of us had a cost basis on Utah stock of a few pennies a share. We considered and rejected a program to diversity through a series of acquisitions, for it would have required the acquisition in short order of assets of around $1 1/2 billion and this was bound to take us beyond the field of our expertise or we would run into difficulty with the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice. This seemed an unpromising and even perilous course to follow. The other broad path to diversification was to seek merger with a company already diversified but the company had to be large enough to digest a $2 billion bite. This narrowed the field. General Electric appeared by all odds the most attractive merger partner that we could seek. General Electric was already diversified. So we worked out the then largest merger in corporate history. GE has proven to be a very good investment for our shareholders. Since the merger the value of the shares received has increased 5 1/4 times. The merger represented a sensible solution to the problems of our shareholders. If we track the shares that grew out of the original $24,000 investment, we find that these shares had a value in 1951 of perhaps $7.2 million if they could have been sold at book value. By the time of the GE merger in 1976 they represented 43% of the total Utah shares and the value of these shares had appreciated to $926 million. Since the merger this value has now increased 12