........
In the end, there was just too tempting an opportunity there for someone - a flood on cheap shares just waiting to be scooped up when the Storm people were sold down......
I think you're stretching it a bit on that aspect. When Colonial closed the funds around mid-December 2008 (I could be wrong on that date/year so I stand to be corrected) the Parliamentary Inquiry was informed that following redemptions (over $500M) and market downturn, the Storm badged indexed funds went from $700M to $44M.
I've just had a look at the STW index fund (which tracks the ASX 200) update of 17 December 2008. The NAV was $33.12 per unitl and BHP alone accounted for 15,054 shares of that particular fund, CBA 6,022 shares and so on. The value of the fund on that day was about $820M. The volume, ie turn over, for BHP is around 16M shares per day and that of CBA some 4M shares per day. If the Storm badged indexed funds reflected a similar composition then then "flood of cheap shares'' would hard pressed to qualify as a drop in the ocean of the trading for that particular day.