Punch broker set to settle with the FSA
ANDREW Osborne, the corporate broker at the centre of the Greenlight Capital insider dealing case, has reluctantly decided he will not fight a £350,000 fine meted out by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) for his role in the affair.
Osborne (pictured), whose clients at Bank of America Merrill Lynch included Tullow Oil, Cairn Energy, the Korean National Oil Company, Bowleven and Afren, has been persuaded by friends and former clients that he is better off accepting the fine than going through an appeal process that might take a couple of years.
Friends say that he is especially reluctant to put his young family – he has three children under the age of 10 – through a period of further uncertainty even though he does not believe he has done anything wrong.
The FSA has already fined the US hedge fund manager David Einhorn from Greenlight £7.2m for trading in shares in Punch Taverns in 2009 just hours after being on a telephone call with Osborne and the group’s senior management ahead of an equity placing.
BoA Merrill Lynch recently lost Tullow Oil as a client as the firm chose to hire Barclays Capital and Morgan Stanley. Other Osborne clients may also be vulnerable to being targeted. Osborne was not available to comment.