Uniqueness of the “nonsingular core” for Hermitian and other matrix pencils

Every pencil of hermitian matrices is conjunctive with a pencil of the form L ⊕ M, where L (the "minimal-indices" part) has no elementary divisors and M (the "nonsingular core") is a nonsingular pencil. Here it is shown that the conjunctivity type ofM is determined by that of L ⊕ M. The same method of proof applies to many other types of pencils, e.g. to congruence of pencils based on (1) a pair of symmetric matrices, (2) a pair of alternating matrices, or (3) a symmetric and an alternating matrix.