m.west on anz, page-156

"ANZ have lost many battles in the past few weeks, the banks position looks bad, and no Crawford report yet!!!"

Agree and according to a press report in the Australian, Blumberg said when he woke up on Good Friday this year and the first day of the Easter weekend he ``had a moment of clarity.''

``I realised there was no way that $95 million from ANZ would fix the problems Opes was facing,'' Blumberg said in his statement. Blumberg said he phoned Mr Steinberg around 10am.

``I can't remember the exact words used but I believe that we had conversation to the following effect:

Blumberg: ``In no way are you going to drop $95 million into Opes on Tuesday morning. The problem is much bigger than $95 million. There are double stock counting issues and in addition to the $95 million call there is a $116 million hole.

``There is no way I am signing a guarantee when the $95 million won't fix a problem. The problem would be $200 million or more and the company may be insolvent.''
Steinberg: ``You can't back out, it's all signed. We have agreed to advance the money so we cannot stop the process.''

Blumberg: ``I'll find a way to stop it.''
Steinberg: ``You can't. It's signed.''
Blumberg: ``I'll find a way to unsign it. I'm telling you as a director of Opes you can't pay money to Opes on Tuesday. I need to appoint administrators.''

Steinberg: ``I can't, I'm a banker, I've made a promise, I have to pay it.''

After that Blumberg phoned Lindholm to tell him of the conversation, and said he wanted to put the company into administration on Tuesday morning.
Lindholm said he was available for that appointment. He also called Opes lawyers Hall & Wilcox asking if they could ``pull the pin'' but they said they couldn't act for Blumberg in the matter and ``did not want to know about the injunction application''.
Blumberg then phoned back Steinberg.
Blumberg: ``You've got to stop this so that we can appoint administrators.''
Steinberg: ``Why? You're overreacting. What's the issue.''
Blumberg: ``The personal guarantee is an issue and another issue is the fact that here isn't enough money, There's a $200 million hole and there is fraud.''
Steinberg: ``You can't use that word.
Blumberg: ``It must be fraud.''
Steinberg: Let's talk about it on Tuesday morning.''
Blumberg: ``No. You can't drop the $95 million into Opes, the problem is too big.''
After much to-ing and fro-ing where Blumberg threatened to injunct the fund injection, he eventually withdrew his allegations of fraud in exchange for a release from a personal guarantee given as part of ANZ's eight-point plan.