Those shareholders in Capital Bars who turned down the 55p sterling a share on offer from Hugh O'Regan's Thomas Read group more than two years ago must be kicking themselves.

After accepting the alternative proposal that saw Capital - or Break for the Border as it was then known - buy six pubs and hotels from Liam and Des O'Dwyer for £14.6 million, those same shareholders have seen the value of their shares go through the floor.

Now the most they can expect is 21p a share from the O'Dwyer brothers, more than 60 per cent below what they rejected from Hugh O'Regan two years ago. The September 1999 deal saw the O'Dwyers get £4.4 million in cash and Capital shares worth £10.2 million. They also took over the running of Capital, with Liam O'Dwyer installed as chief executive.

Now the O'Dwyers are trying to buy the 54 per cent of Capital they don't already own for, at most, £4.9 million. Capital shareholders should examine any proposal very closely before they sign on the dotted line to a 21p a share offer from the O'Dwyers.

Given consumer spending in the past couple of years, one might think that the 11 theme pubs and superpubs in the Capital stable would be a licence to print money. Capital even gets the benefit of the pink pound from the clientele of the George. But instead of making a mint, Capital has struggled to get any sort of a return and profits of €490,000 on turnover of €21.5 million is a pretty paltry return by any standards.

All sorts of reasons were trotted out to explain this dismal performance - everything from the Equal Status Act, which prevents Capital from being choosy about who it lets into its trendy drinking emporia, to price restrictions, high wages, taxi strikes, Aer Lingus strikes, foot-and-mouth disease, Uncle Tom Cobley and all.

Not mentioned as a reason for the poor performance was the rents that Capital pays the O'Dwyer brothers for six of the premises, not to mention a warehouse. The last annual report in 1999 showed that Capital paid its chief executive and his brother £2.4 million in rents.

Add in no dividends and the fact that Capital had to get the support of the O'Dwyers to help repay £3 million in preference shares, not to mention the anecdotal evidence that many of its flagship venues are thinly populated with drinkers except at weekends, and one gets the impression of a company in difficulty.

That probably explains the dive a few weeks ago to 9p sterling. Against that background, shareholders might be thankful of getting 21p for their shares. But it must leave a sour taste that 55p a share in cash was on offer two years ago and was spurned.

Back then, the shareholders flocked to approve the purchase of the O'Dwyer interests for £14.6 million - mainly because they feared the O'Dwyers would walk away from the deal if it was delayed.

"A bird in the hand rather than two birds in the bush", was how one shareholder described it at the time. Maybe they should have waited for Hugh O'Regan's two birds to fly out of that bush into their hands.