OSAKA (Kyodo) Police have arrested the president of Union Holdings Co. and eight other people for allegedly manipulating its stock prices in 2007.
Union Holdings President Toyoyuki Yokohama, 53, and eight members of a speculative trading group were arrested after the Osaka Prefectural Police and the Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission searched the firm's head office and other places Wednesday.
The police and the securities watchdog suspect Yokohama and the eight speculative traders conspired to place a large volume of buy and sell orders at the same time for shares of the Tokyo-based company in April 2007 to make trading in the stock look active, investigative sources said.
Union Holdings' share price hovered around ¥130 per share in early March 2007 but spurted to nearly ¥180 by the end of the next month. The price had tumbled to the ¥50 level by December 2007.