David Dein today re-emerged as a central figure in Arsenal’s future by becoming the chairman of a company that has pledged to buy shares in the club. The Gunners’ former vice-chairman, who stepped down in May following a disagreement with the rest of the board over the merits of encouraging a wealthy American investor, sold his 14.58% stake for 75m to a company called Red and White.

Jointly owned by the Russian businessman Alisher Usmanov and Farhad Moshiri, a London-based investor, Red and White will still have Dein as its chairman. Funds have been committed to buy more Arsenal shares, although Dein insists there is no “current intention” to try to take over the entire club.

Red and White will seek a meeting with the Arsenal board and insist they are keen to keep the club’s current manager, Arsиne Wenger. “Today’s announcement marks a significant step towards realising the vision I share with thousands of fans at home and abroad of making Arsenal the world’s No1 football club,” said Dein.

“I have not lost my passion for the club; indeed, it is greater than ever. My ambition remains to play an active role in Arsenal again. My immediate intention is to work with others to provide the financial resources necessary to turn the vision of Arsenal as the world’s number one club into reality.”

Moshiri is a London-based fund manager and the chairman of Russian mining company, Metalloinvest. Usmanov, who has a box at Arsenal, is the majority shareholder of Metalloinvest and has media and telecoms holdings that include Russia’s largest business newspaper and investment in a mobile phone company. He had his fortunes valued by Forbes magazine last year at 2.6bn, making him the 278th richest person in the world.

Dein left Arsenal in April because of what he saw as a lack of ambition. Thierry Henry followed him out of the door at the end of the season, with his departure to Barcelona believed to have been influenced by Dein’s exit.

Many Arsenal fans have expressed misgivings about the club going into foreign ownership. However, the idea of their traditionally low-spending club being backed by a Russian billionaire, as with Roman Abramovich at Chelsea, could soon change some minds.

TOKYO: Nomura Holdings, the largest Japanese brokerage company, on Friday posted a surprise quarterly loss of $1.5 billion on its exposure to bond insurers and warned that it could still be at risk for further losses related to the credit crisis.

Nomura said the deepening global credit crunch had prompted it to set aside provisions of 132 billion, or $1.27 billion, against losses related to contracts with so-called monoline insurers, which insure against the risk of a bond or another security defaulting.

The company, whose competitors include Daiwa Securities, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, also said that it had booked 22 billion in appraisal losses on its commercial mortgage-backed securities, or CMBS, business.

“The main reason for this earnings result is the deterioration of the monoline insurers,” said Nomuras chief financial officer, Masafumi Nakada.

“We included the impact of monolines and CMBS as much as possible but we cant really say that we have no risk in the future.”

Nomura reported a net loss of 153.85 billion in the quarter through March, compared with a profit of 33 billion a year earlier.

“It is a very negative surprise,” said Wataru Kasatani, senior research analyst at Meiji Dresdner Asset Management. “Another negative surprise is that Nomura had this much exposure to monoline insurers. The market will react a lot to that.”

Nakada said the financial health of monoline insurers had deteriorated so much that they were not able to pay Nomura what they had guaranteed, forcing it to increase the provision.

Nomura posted a 111.8 billion loss from bond trading in the quarter through March, against a 97.5 billion profit in the year-ago period.

The quarterly loss dragged Nomura to a net loss of 67.85 billion for the fiscal year ended March, its first annual loss in nine years and reversing a 175.8 billion profit in the previous year.

Monoline bond insurers guarantee timely interest and principal payments on debt that can consist of municipal bonds, corporate debt and asset-backed securities like residential mortgages, which are insured in vehicles known as collateralized debt obligations.

LONDON: Government bonds fell worldwide Friday, heading for their first monthly loss since June, on concern that rising commodities prices are starting to stoke inflation and signs the credit crisis is easing.

Yields on Japanese government bonds due in five years rose the most since 1999 after consumer prices surged 1.2 percent in March from a year earlier. Two-year U.S. Treasury notes are poised for the biggest back-to-back weekly decline since November 2001 as traders add to bets the Federal Reserve will stop cutting borrowing costs after its April 30 meeting. The European Central Banks president, Jean-Claude Trichet, said Thursday that euro-area rates at a four-year high were adequate for curbing price growth.

“Theres been quite a shift in bond-market sentiment over the past few weeks,” said Nick Stamenkovic, a fixed-income strategist at RIA Capital Market in Edinburgh. “The market has become increasingly confident that the worst is over for the financial sector and that the Fed is nearing the end of its easing cycle.”

Government bonds have handed investors a loss of 1.3 percent in April, indexes compiled by Merrill Lynch showed. The last time the securities declined was in June, when they lost 0.5 percent. It is also the biggest monthly drop since falling 1.9 percent in July 2003.

The two-year U.S. Treasury note yield rose 4 basis points to 2.44 percent in New York, after earlier climbing to a three-month high, according to bond broker BGCantor Market Data. It has risen 68 basis points in the last two weeks. A government five-year note auction yesterday drew the weakest demand since 2003.

The yield on the 0.8 percent Japanese bond due in March 2013 advanced 17 basis points Friday, the most since June 1999, to 1.22 percent. Ten-year Japanese bond futures plunged as much as 1.8 percent, forcing the Tokyo Stock Exchange to order a 15-minute halt in trading for the first time since September 2002.

Yields on 10-year German notes, a benchmark for Europe, climbed for a second week, to 4.18 percent. Gilts also rose for a second week.

Some traders are factoring fewer rate reductions into Treasury prices on speculation policy makers are concerned that lower borrowing costs will stoke inflation, which erodes the value of the fixed payments on longer-maturity debt. Consumer prices in the U.S. rose at a 4 percent annual pace in the 12 months through March.

Futures contracts on the Chicago Board of Trade show there is a 26 percent chance the Fed will keep the U.S. target for overnight bank lending on hold at 2.25 percent on April 30, up from 2 percent a week ago. The balance of the bets are for a quarter-point reduction. The odds of a steeper half-point cut are zero, compared with 28 percent a month ago.

Government bonds rallied as write-downs and credit losses tied to mortgage defaults totaled more than $290 billion since the start of 2007.

U.S. notes ended their advance in April after the Fed cut interest rates six times and arranged lending programs to increase trading in the money markets.

Inflation expectations in the worlds largest economy have risen over the past month, yields indicate.

Ten-year Treasury Inflation Protected Securities yield 2.38 percentage points less than regular U.S. Treasuries, versus 2.25 points on March 25. The difference reflects the pace of price increases traders expect over the next decade.