The government might have reduced its bill by going after the holders of preference shares.
Preference shares typically carry no voting rights, which (unlike WestLB traders) was what Porsche was after.
Preference shares are illiquid, or not easily traded, so it was easier to manipulate their prices.
"Having the ordinaries short, and the preference shares long, you lose your shirt, " said Becker.
They could buy other companies, sit on it, raise the dividend, issue preference shares or buyback stock.
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The convertible preference shares were placed with global institutional investors from Asia, Europe and the United States.
About three-quarters of the government's investment announced this week will be in the form of preference shares.
WestLB's traders had been using partners outside the bank with whom they made fake deals on preference shares.
The company's common shares rose after the bid, but the preference shares stayed static because Porsche hadn't wanted them.
Britain has now swapped its preference shares in Royal Bank of Scotland into pure equity, taking its stake to 70%.
To the bank's bosses, this would have made the positions in Japanese preference shares seem far more profitable than they were.
It has bonds and preference shares outstanding, and a credit rating unlike Porsche.
If they'd managed to get a fake deal with their chums on a company's preference shares, that was how their position was valued.
Mr Einhorn has argued that Apple could do this by issuing more preference shares to investors, even going to court over the issue.
The economy minister says preference shares should never have been sold to retail savers but agrees that bank investors must bear some losses.
He wants Apple to issue perpetual preference shares to existing shareholders.
In reality, the traders would have been unlikely to be able to sell their preference shares at a profit because they'd bought them at faked prices.
Worse, banks have come to rely on issuing their own preference shares to raise capital, and will find that harder if holders of Fannie's and Freddie's paper suffer losses.
As for GM, it is avoiding the costs of closing Saab down and is getting a small but useful pot of cash even if its preference shares bring in nothing.
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BMW's ordinary shares, and big long positions in their preference shares, will hinge on whether they were kept in the trading book or the so-called banking book, where WestLB makes strategic investments.
The government is also proposing to strengthen banks by buying preference shares and subordinated debt and by approving some new accounting tricks, such as not deducting unrealised losses on equities from banks' capital.
Following the preliminary ruling by US District Judge Richard Sullivan in New York, Apple has dropped plans to ask shareholders to vote on whether to abolish a contractual right that the company currently enjoys to issue such preference shares without limit.
They were attracted by the preference shares' combination of a low risk weighting and decent yield, says Ira Jersey of Credit Suisse, but have seen their prices tumble on fears that they will be wiped out if the government moves to prop the agencies up.
Alibaba said it financed the deal with a mixture of cash, senior debt and the issuance of convertible preference and ordinary shares.
Fintecna will acquire all Alitalia Servizi's preference stock and 49% of its ordinary shares.
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When investors are uncertain (risk-averse), they have a preference for holding cash and the price of shares falls.
These are a special type of share that pay a regular flat dividend in perpetuity, and which receive their payment in preference to the dividends paid out on ordinary shares.
Jones, a principal at Sand Hill Insights in Menlo Park, California, says his preference as an investor is for Apple to buy back its shares a lot of them.
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My preference as a shareholder is for there to be lots of bidders for my shares and shareholders willing to pay a premium for those shares.
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