Very dull day for Luminus, thanks to Primebroker * Ian...

Very dull day for Luminus, thanks to Primebroker

* Ian McIlwraith
* July 9, 2008
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SHARES in Luminus Systems more than halved to a tiny 0.8¢ each after the company revealed it has a $9 million exposure and some 85% of its stock caught up in margin-lending facilities with Primebroker Securities.

Primebroker, the brokerage arm of Chimaera Capital, was put into receivership by ANZ last week. The bank made a $50 million provision against a total exposure of $260 million, which is secured by shares and property.

The maximum available to Primebroker under the ANZ lending facility, signed in February, was $500 million.

Last night, ANZ released a list of 13 publicly listed companies it now has a significant stake in following the collapse of Primebroker and the shifting of parcels of stock to the bank under its original lending agreement.

The exposure includes 13.2% of the now failed Bill Express, 9.47% of Renison Consolidated and 8.63% of CFK Childcare Centres. IDT Australia and UXC Ltd are also involved.

ANZ has also acquired 24.26 million shares in Octaviar, or 5.05%, of the crumbling property group whose shares have been frozen since January.

Luminus is now effectively a subsidiary of ANZ, because of the large number of shares it controls, as is a Brisbane computer services company.

Luminus, which has directors in common with the Chimaera group, is one of six companies that have now confirmed they are in the Chimaera-Primebroker orbit.

Luminus, which has 3.7 billion shares on issue, said 3.13 billion were affected by the margin facilities — 1.8 billion of those associated with directors Ian Pattison and Sal Catalano, who are also Chimaera directors.

Luminus said the $9 million exposure to Primebroker related to the company's trading securities. In Luminus' last accounts, it listed its 15.8% of the listed CFK Childcare Centres and 12.7% of unlisted Dental Corporation Holdings as trading securities. Both companies are headed by Normanby Capital chief Mark Evans, who could not be reached for comment.

Directors from a third Luminus investment, the unlisted computer services group Promim in Brisbane, were also unavailable. According to Australian Securities and Investments Commission filings, Promim took out a $4 million facility with Primebroker in December.

UXC and IDT are both associated with prominent Melbourne businessman and Melbourne Victory soccer team chairman Geoff Lord. Mr Lord was unavailable.

With ELI GREENBLAT