anz and bnb, page-3

Doesn't this just keep getting better and better for the shorts? For starters, the review didn't touch on Tricom, which is bizarre given ANZ had the biggest exposure to share lending and was the first to get into trouble.

Even more interestingly, there are questions about how much exposure ANZ really had to equities finance. On page 12 of the review, ANZ states: "The amount of cash and securities advanced by ANZ to brokers peaked at approximately $2 billion in August 2007."

Tricom's 2007 annual accounts reveal that it had a lending facility with ANZ to the tune of $2.3 billion, never mind its exposure to Opes Prime and Chimaera, which would have added up to another $1 billion or so.

Tricom had the same model as Opes Prime in that clients who took out a securities lending agreement (which is similar to a margin loan) signed away their beneficial ownership of the shares to Tricom. Like Opes Prime, this meant if Tricom went belly-up, clients became unsecured creditors. The model is similar because it was set up by two of the founders of Opes, Julian Smith and Laurie Emini.