I agree, investors (including myself) look at reverse splits as a negative, but there ARE good reasons for doing one.
As SMITTER said, they are trying to clean their books. The R/S may not happen, but if it does, it's solely on getting the merger and APO process complete.
If they were to just announce a R/S with no supplemental information, then I would agree that it would be a negative. In this case, I do not believe so.
But as I said, some of this is my opinion. Trust your gut and make the decision you belive is right.