At 5pm Eastern Standard Time in New York on Friday, Colin Neville, the head of sport at Raine Group, refreshed his emails and somewhere among his inbox was a proposal from the new owner of Chelsea.
Neville is the man entrusted by Roman Abramovich to sell his most high-profile asset and 5pm New York time was the deadline for all bids to be submitted.
There has been a frenzy of speculation since Abramovich announced his intention to sell the club, intensifying when the Russian was sanctioned for his close links to Vladimir Putin.