Opes Prime

Opes Prime Group Limited was an Australian securities lending and stockbroking firm which suffered a dramatic collapse in 2008.

The company was founded in 2003 by Laurie Emini and Julian Smith. Emini, an Albanian emigrant to Australia, had worked for the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) until he was retrenched in 1997, and began share trading from his home. Smith, a British national, had emigrated to Australia in 1993, and ran the securities and investments division of the stock brokerage firm Ord Minnett. By 2008, the company had offices in Melbourne, Sydney and Singapore and employed about 80 people.

The company's downfall was revealed on 28 March 2008 when the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) announced it was launching an investigation into Opes Prime Stockbroking, and that the company had gone into receivership the previous day, with Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu appointed as receivers by ANZ Bank immediately after the company had appointed Ferrier Hodgson as administrators. Opes Prime's secured debt was believed to be over A$1 billion, with its major secured creditors including the ANZ Banking Group (owed around $650 million), and Merrill Lynch.

Melbourne underworld figure Mick Gatto made headlines when he travelled to Singapore on behalf of an anonymous group of investors in an attempt to retrieve their money. Mr Gatto however returned to Melbourne saying that the Singapore Directors and staff were hardly to blame but were rather "victims".

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