zotron you are speaking of enterprise value...which has nothing to do with current market cap...I once thought the same thing as you but have realized since I was wrong...enterprise value ONLY comes into play with an acquisition...essentially that is when ownership is *cashed* in...but otherwise market cap is the measure
let me give you an example...walmart has an A/S of say 5B...and their current market cap is X...at any time, Walmart can pass a board resolution raising the A/S to 10B...so they have the POTENTIAL to then raise the O/S...but if they don't raise O/S does it ever affect the valuation of the company? No....
The day Tom starts converting preferreds to common is the day this will start to be figured into the current valuation of the company, not before then