Japanese Trader Arrested After Insider Trading of GDH in 2006-2007

Japan’s business newswires are running at full speed today on news that 49 year old Takeshi Matsubara has been arrested for conducting insider trading based on non-public information relating to the former GDH conglomerate, more commonly known as Gonzo to anime fans.

The arrest stems from Matsubara’s purchase of GDH stock in December of 2006 prior to an unnannounced private equity issue that was purchased by Sony’s So-Net subsidiary in 2007. As So-Net purchased the equity stake, Matsubara subsequently sold the 11 million yen in GDH stock on the news of the equity purchase in the company for an estimated profit of 2-9 million yen.

It should be noted that none of the official Japanese reports name GDH explicitly as the conglomerate in question, the information being revealed only after 2ch users began extrapolating data on share prices from the time period and finding that GDH’s share prices lined up with the news reports.