potential takeover yes no, page-13

Challenger boss vows to clear the air

By Peter Gosnell

June 02, 2008 04:59am
Article from: The Daily Telegraph

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CHALLENGER boss Mike Tilley yesterday promised to improve understanding about the company's business activities after Challenger shares were subjected to heavy short selling earlier this year.

"The complexity around our business model relates to life insurance accounting and the vast majority of our shareholders' funds are employed in our life insurance vehicle," Mr Tilley said yesterday.

"We've been working to give better clarity to the market and we'll introduce that in the next month or so."

Challenger shares plunged earlier this year as short sellers employed tactics designed to capitalise on the vulnerability of debt-heavy companies in an environment of soaring interest rates and share market panic.

Challenger's vulnerability was exacerbated after it emerged that lawyer Chris Murphy owned a large parcel of Challenger shares bought with margin loans from failed broker Opes Prime but had not received a margin call to sell.

Mr Tilley said that while he knew Mr Murphy was a shareholder, the first time he had heard about Opes Prime was when the broker's collapse was reported in newspapers.

"We had no knowledge of Chris Murphy having margin loans or of being involved with Opes Prime," he said.
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