Losses mount for Opes Prime’s clients in Australia
In the last couple of days, huge losses mount for Opes Prime’s clients as the stockbroking firm had been determined that it was insolvent.
(graphic picture taken from website: www.opesprime.com.au)
Opes prime is a firm that deals in stockbroking, asset management and corporate finance. It has recently collapsed after one of its prime auditors Ernst & Young only took two hours to determine that the firm was insolvent.
As administrators of the collapsed stockbroker rushed to seize control of a mysterious British Virgin Islands company which links three of the firms directors clients were told they could only collect $0.30c in the dollar in return for their share portfolios which were liquidated by its secured creditors to recover around $1.3 billion in debts.
Opes Prime administrator John Lindholm predicted it could be even less if he was unable to recover from favoured clients who were protected from margin calls.
Opes Prime directors called in the administrators on March 27 when they discovered a $200M hole in its accounts. ASIC investigators have discovered that six clents’ accounts had been protected from margin calls through “top ups” with other people’s stock.
It has also since been discovered that Riqueza (a British Virgin Islands based company whose sole director is Jay Moghe - who also owns Opes Singapore) is one of the main focus of the investigation as Riqueza was used as an intermediary between Opes Prime and two other investment vehicles named Leverage Capital Pty. Ltd. (owned by Laurie Emini and Julian Smith and Hawkswood Investments Pty. Ltd. (owned by Laurie Emini, Julian Smith & Anthony Blumberg).
Mr Moghe who is a sole director and shareholder of Riqueza is a Singapore-based businessman, who also recently resigned as the chief executive of an Opes Prime subsidiary based in the Virgin Islands, said that while he was the sole director and sole shareholder of Riqueza - had been wrested from him. Therefore, he “has no control over it”… he says he knew there were some transfers but he has no control over any of it,” Mr. Moghe said last Tuesday.
On a strange twist of fate, Mick Gatto a Melbourne underworld figure who was acquitted of murder in 2005 over the fatal shooting of Melbourne hitman Andrew “Benji” Venjiamin - boasted to The Australian Financial Review that he could do a much better job of tracking the losses than the administrators of the collapsed broker.
According to The Australian Financial Review, ‘Mr Gatto and business associates John Khoury and Matt Thomas said they were confident they could achieve a better result than the $0.30c in the dollar return flagged by the Opes Prime administrator John Lindholm.
According to Mr Gatto, although he “wanted to try and get a result for everyone and while acting for his clients” - he could not say which ones he is acting for.
This will be interesting to see how this story unfolds whilst investigations are ongoing.
