no fire sale

Alan Kohler - 6:47 AM Mar 31, 2008

On Friday it seemed that the lenders to Opes Prime, ANZ Bank and Merrill Lynch, were dumping stock they held as collateral at huge discounts to recover the $1 billion they are owed.

Brokers reported that big lines of banks and medium cap stocks were being flogged and that institutions were enjoying what amounted to a garage sale. Shares in Hedley Leisure & Gaming Property Fund were placed in a trading halt after an off-market transaction went through at a 50 per cent discount, apparently as a result of the Opes collapse.

However, last night an ANZ spokesman told Business Spectator: “Average discount to stock sold on Friday was about 2 per cent. No stock was sold by ANZ at a 40 per cent discount (in fact not any discount remotely near that). We are committed to taking time to complete the sell down in an orderly way to ensure we obtain fair value.”