So some company called "MIR Investment management" sold 9.9m...

So some company called "MIR Investment management" sold 9.9m shares for 7.7 million dollars, and ceased to be a substantial holder.


Several interesting things.

The shares were sold on Tuesday 3 Feb 2009, and the average sale price was 78c. They must have been exercising a put option.

And secondly, 9.9m shares is 0.5% of the stapled securities on issue in IOF. And the sold 0.5% and ceased to be a substantial holder. So they must have held between 5.0% and 5.5% before the sale, and they must still have more than 4.5% after the sale.


So how does this work then ? This MIR had some shares, they bought put options from a market-maker/option writer a few weeks ago, the option writer short-sold to hedge off their option liability.

MIR then excersices the put option ( puts the shares onto the market maker ), who then returns the shares to the stock lender ( or dumps them on market, but if they have to return the covered short to the stock lender anyway, why would they sell on market ?).

What this suggests, is that the short sale which the option writer made into the market, never actually has to be closed out in the market.


Has anyone heard of MIR ? Are the connected with ING ? Are the connected to the underwriter of the recent placement ? They still would appear to own 4.5% of IOF.