The reason why business are scrambling to sell assets is because...

The reason why business are scrambling to sell assets is because of several reasons.

The first could be that they can no longer afford to have an asset just sitting there. Its better for them to get rid of the asset. Thereby eliminating the costs associated with it and possibly (if there is any) redeploying the equity elsewhere or using it to reduce other loans.

The second reason could be that with property prices falling, businesses may just be taking a profit now. Sit on the sidelines and then re-enter the market at a better time.

Tied with the second reason is that with the falling values it has the effect of increasing the loan to valuation ratio thingy. As a result banks would not be willing to refinance on the same terms if the value of the security has fallen.

And in relation to Opes, thats a completely different situation. That is margin loans. And if you look at the clients of Opes, I doubt they would have lent money to OCV. They may have lent to people associated with OCV but that is neither here nor there in relation to the predicament of ocv.