poole could have been in deeper water.....

AS Sydney banker Richard Poole tallies up his losses from the Strathfield Group debacle, it might help to consider that things could always be worse.

A lot worse, in fact.

Sure, Poole's aspiring investment bank Arthur Phillip has been left with a large bundle of arguably worthless Strathfield stock.

And sure, it was his firm that introduced the electronics and mobile phone retailer to the new Swedish investor that went on to pull the pin.

Not to mention that the former Strathfield chairman has yet to be paid any advisory fees for undertaking the related-party transaction in the first place. Or so we hear.

But it was this time a year ago that Poole very nearly found himself standing around the carcass of a much bigger mess: that of stockbroker and securities lender Opes Prime Group, which collapsed last March causing all sorts of havoc on the share market.

That's right. Arthur Phillip, which makes no secret of its admiration of the Macquarie Group-style of banking, played a role in the attempted backdoor listing of Opes Prime into listed shell company Reco Financial.

Under the terms of the deal, Reco was to issue 400 million new shares to Opes shareholders, including Laurie Emini, Julian Smith and Anthony Blumberg. While Arthur Phillip was to be issued 10 million options in the merged group in return for its corporate advisory work.

The deal was well-advanced and even had the tick of approval from Reco's due diligence committee when Opes Prime collapsed.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,25013705-30538,00.html