More than £35,000 ($45,300) was staked on Arsenal shares in "suspicious" trading activity "minutes before news broke of
Alisher Usmanov’s bid to take full control" of the club, according to Jamie Nimmo of the London EVENING STANDARD. The offer from the Russian billionaire, who owns 30% of Arsenal, to pay £1B ($1.29B) for U.S. sports tycoon Stan Kroenke's 67% stake was revealed at 5pm on Friday. The trading history on the NEX Exchange, the market on which Arsenal's shares are listed, showed "two trades went through just before the market closed on Friday," one worth £17,200 ($22,300) just after 3pm and the other worth £18,200 ($23,600) shortly before 4pm. It was the "first time Arsenal's rarely traded shares had changed hands in almost a month." Only seven trades, including Friday's, have been made all year. One broker said that the timing of the trades looked "suspicious," while another said that it "always raises eyebrows if a trade occurs before a bid." One banker, though, suggested it "could have been someone gambling on the outcome of the following day's matches." A loss for Liverpool would have seen Arsenal qualify for the "lucrative" Champions League (
EVENING STANDARD, 5/24).