Nick Leeson
Nicholas Leeson (English, born
February 25,
1967) was formerly a
derivatives trader; his unsupervised speculative trading caused the collapse of
Barings Bank, the
United Kingdom's oldest
investment bank.
In the early 1990s Leeson was employed by Barings, and was appointed manager of a new operation in futures markets on the
Singapore International Monetary Exchange (SIMEX). From 1992, Leeson made speculative trades which he was not authorised to do. At first he made large profits for his employers 10% of Barings total annual income. Later he made losses, and secretly used the error account 88888 (a number considered very lucky in Chinese
numerology) to hide his losses. This account was initially opened to hide a £20000 trade of one his subordinates that had not gone favourably. Leeson used this account to cover future bad trades. Management at Barings Bank also allowed Leeson to remain Chief Trader while being responsible for settling his trades, a job that is usually split. This made it much simpler for him to hide his losses to the Bank. By the end of 1992, the account's losses were over £2 million, which ballooned to £208 million by the end of 1994. The beginning of the end occurred on
January 16,
1995, when Leeson placed a
short straddle (a type of
short selling) for
derivatives in the Singapore and Tokyo stock exchanges, essentially betting that the markets would not move overnight. However, the
Kobe earthquake hit early in the morning on January 17, sending Asian markets into a tailspin and Leeson's investments along with them. Leeson attempted to recoup his losses by making a series of increasingly risky new investments , this time betting that the
Nikkei would make a rapid recovery, but this failed to materialize and he only succeeded in digging a deeper hole. Leeson, realizing the gravity of the situation, left a note reading "I'm Sorry" and fled. Losses eventually reached £827 million ($1.4 billion), twice the available trading capital at the bank, and led to the bank's collapse on discovery.
After fleeing to Malaysia, Brunei and finally Germany, Leeson was arrested and extradited back to
Singapore on March 2, 1995. While he had authorization for the January 16th short straddle, he was charged with fraud for deceiving his superiors about the riskiness of his activities and the scale of his losses, although some observers have placed much of the blame on the bank's own deficient internal
auditing and
risk management practices. Sentenced to six and a half years in
jail in Singapore, he was released from prison in 1999, having been diagnosed with
colon cancer, which he apparently has survived despite the grim forecasts at the time.
Leeson returned to the United Kingdom and published an autobiography
Rogue Trader detailing his acts. The book was later made into a film of the same name starring
Ewan McGregor and
Anna Friel.
Nick Leeson now lives in
Barna,
County Galway in the west of Ireland. Having
divorced while in prison, he has now re-married and is now a regular guest on the after-dinner speaking circuit, having described himself as one of Great Britain's most sought-after speakers [
1]. He was appointed Commercial Manager of
Galway United Football Club in April 2005, rising to the position of General Manager in late November 2005.
On June 23, 2005, Leeson released a new book
Back from the Brink: Coping with Stress. It picks up his story where
Rogue Trader left off, including in-depth conversations with psychologist Ivan Tyrrell asserting how the continual levels of stress that affected Leeson's mental and physical health can be related to most people.
*
Rogue Trader (1997) - ISBN 0751517089
*
Back from the Brink: Coping with Stress (2005) - ISBN 0753510758
*
Nick Leeson's Official Website*
Barings Debacle (further details)*
Leeson's legacy lives on in Singapore*
BBC - Crime Case Closed - Nick Leeson*
Galway United FC
