Not only are ANZ liquidating opes stock they tried to steal tricoms stock before they called in liquqidators. ANZ needs to be investigated for INSIDER TRADING...
Off-market sales in Opes Prime opus
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Bryan Frith | April 02, 2008
THERE is the whiff of yet another securities scandal in the offing following yesterday's cancellation of a dozen special crossings of stock that were reported to the Australian Securities Exchange on Friday morning, just ahead of the collapse of the stockbroking firm Opes Prime.
The off-market sales were cancelled by the ASX at the request of the troubled, but to date still afloat, broker Tricom Securities. The sales were booked at discounts of between 30 and 50 per cent of the then market price, which suggests that they were subject to securities lending or margin loans and were booked at the LVR (loan to valuation ratio).
The transactions included parcels of stock in Babcock & Brown Wind, B&B Capital, B&B Communications and B&B Power, Everest Babcock, Arrow Energy, Hedley Leisure & Gaming and Just Group.
Off-market sales by brokers have to be reported to the ASX. The exchange's only role in such transactions is to record them. Yesterday's cancellation means the sales have, in effect, been "unreported". What that means is that the transactions were cancelled by the parties themselves, and not at the behest of the ASX.
Of more interest is why the sales were unwound. Does it signify that they should not have been booked in the first place?
The transactions were, to say the least, fortuitous for the seller, because had the stock remained with Opes Prime it would have been seized by the financiers who funded the broker's stock lending activities. It's difficult to ignore the coincidence of timing between the transactions and the appointment of receivers and administrators to Opes Prime.
The corporate regulator ASIC should make inquiries, as it poses the inescapable question about whether the seller somehow got wind of the impending demise of Opes Prime in time to get the stock into the hands of another broker -- and that could have connotations of insider trading.
