Mr. Quinn entered into a speculative contract to bet on the price of Anglo shares. It is unusual for CFDs to be converted to the underlying shares.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_for_difference
Without knowing the real details it looks like Mr. Quinn built up the size of the CFD on margin (putting little or no money down) with a broker in London. The broker bought shares to hedge against losing money on the contract (that the shares would rise). Eventually the size of the contract amounted to 25% of the company and the broker held that many shares as a hedge.
When the CFD busted and Mr. Quinn had to buy his way out of the contract(s), he bought 15% of the shares from the broker (putting 25% of Anglo on the market at once would have tanked the share price and cost Mr. Quinn a further fortune, as I believe he would be responsible for the costs of unwinding the contract). There is then a remaining 10% of Anglo to get rid of.
What happens next is a bit of a mystery to me.
- did Mr. Quinn have that 10% that he couldn't afford to buy so he talked to Anglo?
- did the broker have the 10%?
- is there a problem that Mr. Quinn borrowed the money for the 15% of shares from Anglo? (albeit at the cost of mortgaging his personal holdings in his business assets)
- did Anglo know about the CFD all along?
- were the golden circle patsies?
- did they know the full nature of the thing?
It is not true to say that Mr. Quinn did not benefit from this arranged sale of the 10%:
- in the unwind of the CFD, 10% being sold on the market in a margin call would have increased the loss on the CFD and resulted in further margin calls.
- as a shareholder of 15% of Anglo, a share support scheme benefitted him