Kaupthing OK'd £1.7bn loans for Arsenal backer before collapse

Kaupthing approved loans worth €2bn (£1.69bn) for Alisher Usmanov, the billionaire behind Arsenal FC, less than two weeks before the Icelandic bank went bust.

Iceland's biggest bank failed in early October 2008, hitting 150,000 British savers with Edge internet accounts. It still owes the UK Treasury £2.5bn for stepping in to compensate customers, the Telegraph reports. Minutes of a credit committee show Kaupthing was still showering businessmen, including Usmanov, with offers of money on 24 September. The leaked documents show Kaupthing's loan to Usmanov would have been more than double the 25% limit for exposure to a single party. It also emerges that Usmanov owned a 1.5% stake in the bank. At this meeting, the credit committee agreed ...