A group of investors in failed brokerage Opes Prime have failed in their attempts to halt the sale of their share portfolio by the ANZ Bank.

CMG Group, a maker of printing products, was seeking an injunction of the sale of their shares by ANZ.

Justice Ray Finkelstein this evening rejected the bid. The case may still go to court at a later date if no settlement is reached out of court.

CMG Group is seeking a return of $25 million in stock that it had placed with Opes Prime in return for margin loans, AAP reported.
 
Justice Ray Finkelstein, in rejecting the application for an injunction, said there was a question whether an injunction would be of greater benefit to CMG Group than other forms of relief if CMG Group were to take the matter to trial, succeed and seek damages.

Justice Finkelstein also said that he had problems with the merit of some of CMG Group's claim.

CMG Group said the shares that it was seeking to have returned were among a pool of stock that the ANZ started selling after Opes was placed in receivership last Thursday (March 27).

Opes Prime owes the ANZ $650 million and secured the loan against shares held by Opes.
 
But CMG Group and other Opes clients have claimed that stocks with the ANZ Bank and Merrill Lynch, which is the other major secured creditor of Opes Prime, were still theirs and they wanted them back.

Counsel for the CMG Group, David Denton SC, told the court that the stocks were of long-term strategic importance to CMG, especially if CMG wished to make a takeover of any companies listed on the Australian stock exchange.

But counsel for the ANZ Bank, Jonathon Beech QC, said the shares claimed by CMG Group could not be easily identified.
 
He said the pool of Opes shares were split between the major secured creditors and the origin of those shares could not be immediately ascertained.

Mr Beech said that CMG Group could readily obtained shares on market if it need it for strategic reasons.

CMG Group claims that when it placed shares with Opes, Opes had indicated in a 2005 brochure that clients would retain their interest in the shares and that the ANZ should have known this.

CMG Group also claimed other representations were made by Opes, saying that clients would retain an interest in their shares.

Neither counsel for ANZ or counsel for CMG would comment to the media after the hearing.

The Age, with AAP