wonder who they are protecting?Top 20 ShareholdersAs at 3 March...

wonder who they are protecting?

Top 20 Shareholders
As at 3 March 2008

Shareholder's Name Units %
ANZ Nominees Ltd 123,762,837 25.94
Mr Leo Khouri 32,000,000 6.71

Top 20 Holders of
ORDINARY SHARES Number %
1 ANZ Nominees Limited 59,451,256 44.64
2 Avondry Pty Ltd 6,072,090 4.56
3 Bio Prospect Limited 2,500,000 1.88


Trader with GT stripes

* Mark Hawthorne
* April 2, 2008
*

THE man leading the class action of Opes Prime investors trying to seize back control of their frozen shares portfolios, Leo Khouri, is part-owner of Truth Media, a former part-owner of a notorious city nightspot, Barfly's, and one of the nation's most successful day traders.

From his home office in Taylor Lakes, Khouri has amassed a multimillion-dollar fortune in less than six years, but little else is known about the man nicknamed "The Gun" in day trading circles .

Lebanon-born Khouri and associated parties are said to have $50 million of stock tied up in frozen Opes Prime accounts and have hired lawyers Clayton Utz to lead a class action against ANZ Bank, Merrill Lynch and Dresdner Klienwort - which between them have claimed more than $1 billion of Opes shares held in nominee accounts.

Legal letters were exchanged on Sunday and Monday between Clayton Utz and the Melbourne office of Minter Ellison, which is acting for receivers and managers

Ferrier

Hodgson and Deloitte as well as for ANZ. Minters was blunt in its reply to Clayton Utz: "All securities lent to the company (Opes) have been pooled and lent to its financiers, principally ANZ Bank, Merrill Lynch and Dresdner Klienwort. Pursuant to those arrangements, title to the securities has passed to the relevant financier."

According to filings with ASIC, Khouri owns 20 million shares in Truth Media, the publisher of Truth Sport newspaper.

The newspaper emerged from the ashes of the newspaper and radio empire of Mark Day (now media commentator at The Australian newspaper), which went into receivership in September 1994.

The core media asset of Day's company was Melbourne's Truth newspaper, which to this day makes most of its revenue from advertising Melbourne's brothel, stripper and escort industry.

The major shareholder of Truth Media is Fred Sharkosi, the former licensee of Bar 20 and the Sports Bar nightclubs on King Street.

Some mystery surrounds how Khouri, 43, amassed his fortune. In an interview with The Age in 1999, Khouri described how he traded tens of thousands of dollars on single transactions from his home computer.

"I can trade anywhere up to 10 to 12 times in a single day," he said. "But it's a lot of work getting information, drawing charts, chatting on the net, swapping information, watching after-market trading."

He also told The Age of an audacious plan to "pump the market" for millions of dollars - by setting up a million-dollar investment club whereby 20 day-traders would each put $50,000 into a central pool to be punted on the stockmarket.

He said it would be "the ultimate day-trade".

"I'm getting so much interest about this idea that I could fill it with people three or four times over. Even stockbrokers have been ringing me up offering to put in $50,000," Khouri said.

It is not known if any of Khouri's future King Street business partners invested in such schemes, but they certainly worked. Such were the trappings of Khouri's success that he and his close friend, Steve Dellidis, have amassed a collection of classic Australian Ford "muscle cars" estimated to be worth $5 million.

Last year, Khouri and Dellidis paid a record $1 million for a pair of rare Ford Falcon GT sedans.

The pair own a collection of 16 immaculate GT Falcons, said to be the largest private collection in Australia. Such is the size of their collection that many in the classic car industry fear the market price of Ford GT and GTHO sedans could collapse if the entire collection of Khouro and Dellidis was put up for auction.

After that record Ford purchase last year, Khouri told The Age he was a former motor mechanic who traded stocks from his lounge room.

"I just had a taste for it," he said.

Khouri also said that a short time after he started day trading he was diagnosed with bowel cancer and told by doctors he had three months to live.

"My missus bought me a photo of a GT Falcon and I put it on the wall and vowed that I would own one one day," Khouri said. "I looked at that photo every day and honestly I think it helped me get through things."

He won his struggle with cancer and later celebrated by taking part in a kick-boxing fight.

"When we were 18, nobody could afford cars like these," Khouri told The Age. "Our fathers had these cars. Now it's our turn."

Khouri is said to have the support of Opes Prime investors with $300 million of stocks seized by ANZ Bank, Merrills and Driesdner Kleinwort.

Khouri could not be contacted for comment yesterday, but one of his business associates said he believed he was planning to relocate back to Lebanon.


Fork in the road

THE Opes Prime collapse has dragged in many names.

Red Fork Energy is just one of many small-caps trapped in a trading halt after disclosing that a major shareholder held its shares through an Opes Prime account. Red Fork would not comment on which of its major shareholders was impacted by Opes - the list includes Lehman Brothers, Golden Deeds Pty Ltd, and Credit Suisse.

Lehman and Credit Suisse are global institutions - but, who, we wondered, is Golden Deeds? According to ASIC records, this company has two directors - Russell Krause and Malcolm Shippen.

Krause is part owner of a racehorse called Rose of Dana, whose other owners include one "L Emini". Lirim "Laurie" Emini is, of course, the boss of Opes Prime.

It's a very small world.

Krause, a stockbroker, was managing director of ANZ Securities until 1998, when he left to join BT Alex Brown. More recently, he worked for Perth brokerage Hartley's.

Krause is now a non-executive director of E-Business Systems, an IT company listed on the Newcastle Stock Exchange.