ARB NOUN (BUSINESS WORLD)

In financial jargon, a dealer in stocks who takes advantage of differing values in different markets to make money; especially on the US stock exchange, a dealer in the stocks of companies facing take-over bids. Etymology: A colloquial shortened form of arbitrageur, a French word borrowed into English in the late nineteenth century for any stock dealer who makes his money from buying stock in one market and selling in another. History and Usage: Although the practice of arbitrage (the simultaneous buying and selling of large quantities of stock in different markets so as to take advantage of the price difference) is well established--it dates from the late nineteenth century--the word arbitrageur was not shortened to arb in print until Wall Street risk arbitrageurs started buying up large quantities of stock in companies facing take-over bids in the late seventies. These take-overs attracted considerable media interest, and the word arb started to appear frequently in the financial sections of newspapers from about the beginning of the eighties. For a start you often have to make use of the 'arbs', very useful gentlemen indeed in a bid battle. Sunday Telegraph 25 Mar. 1984, p. 19 It should have been the risk arbitrageurs' finest year...Instead, in the wake of archrival Ivan F. Boesky's admission of insider trading, the arbs are being battered. Business Week 8 Dec. 1986, p. 36