Please explain CFDs in relation to anglo for me

Beano

I hope this is the correct for this. Apologies if not.

I am trying to understand what is being reported about the basis for the anglo trial and it just doesnt add up. From what i have read Sean Quinn controlled a large number of Anglo shares through CFDs and these needed to be sold quickly to prevent a run on the banks shares. this led on to the loans that are the basis of the current trial but i dont really care about that. what i am trying to understand is how a person can be said to own a large portion of a banks shares through CFDs. I thought CFDs were merely a bet on whether a share will go up or down in value. No actual shares ever changed hands. so how can somebody use CFDs to acquire a shareholding?

Ardeehey

Have to admit that I've been a little confused by this myself, you never own a share in a company as a CFD holder. The only thing I can think of it that Anglo themselves had issued the CFDs and that Quinn's proportional holding out of the pool that Anglo issued was 20 odd percent of that? Normally CFDs can be issued by anyone to track movements so I'm thinking only Anglo's own issuing of CFDs tracking their own share price could cause them trouble?