Nick Leeson

Nick Leeson
Born Nicholas William Leeson
(1967-02-25) 25 February 1967
Watford, England, United Kingdom
Occupation
Spouse(s)
  • Lisa Sims
    (m. 1992–1997 divorced)[1]
  • Leona Tormay
    (m. 2003–present)
Website nickleeson.com

Nicholas William "Nick" Leeson[2] (born 25 February 1967) is an English former derivatives broker famous for his time at Barings Bank, the United Kingdom's oldest merchant bank. A rogue trader who made fraudulent, unauthorised and speculative moves, his actions led directly to the 1995 collapse of Barings Bank, for which he was sentenced to prison.

Between 2005 and 2011 he had management roles at League of Ireland club Galway United. He is also active on the keynote and after-dinner speaking circuit, where he advises companies about risk and corporate responsibility. He also competed in Celebrity Big Brother 2018, where he finished in 4th place.

Early life

Leeson was born in Watford, where he attended Parmiter's School. After finishing school in 1985 his first job was as a clerk with a private bank, Coutts. He then moved to Morgan Stanley in 1987 for two years, and then to Barings in 1989.

Career

In 1992, he was appointed general manager of a new operation in futures markets on the Singapore International Monetary Exchange (SIMEX).[3] Barings had held a seat on SIMEX for some time, but did not activate it until Leeson was sent over. Leeson was sent to Singapore after he was denied a broker's licence in the United Kingdom because of fraud on his application.[4] Neither Leeson nor Barings disclosed this denial when Leeson applied for his licence in Singapore.[5]

From 1992, Leeson made unauthorised speculative trades that at first made large profits for Barings: £10 million, which accounted for 10% of Barings' annual profit.[6] He earned a bonus of £130,000 on his salary of £50,000 for that year.

However, Leeson's luck soon went sour and he used one of Barings' error accounts (accounts used to correct mistakes made in trading) to hide his losses. The account was numbered 88888.[7][8] Leeson claims that this account was first used to hide an error made by one of his colleagues; rather than buy 20 contracts as the customer had ordered, she had sold them, costing Barings £20,000.[9][10]

However, Leeson used this account to cover further bad trades. He insists that he never used the account for his own gain, but in 1996 The New York Times quoted "British press reports" as claiming that investigators had located approximately $35 million in various bank accounts tied to him.[3]

Management at Barings Bank also allowed Leeson to remain chief trader while also being responsible for settling his trades, jobs usually done by two different people. This made it much simpler for him to hide his losses from his superiors.[11]

Downfall

By the end of 1992, the account's losses exceeded £2 million, which ballooned to £208 million by the end of 1994.

The beginning of the end occurred on 16 January 1995, when Leeson placed a short straddle in the Singapore and Tokyo stock exchanges, essentially betting that the Japanese stock market would not move significantly overnight. However, the Kobe earthquake hit early in the morning on 17 January, sending Asian markets, and Leeson's trading positions, into a tailspin. Leeson attempted to recoup his losses by making a series of increasingly risky new trades (using a long-long future arbitrage), this time betting that the Nikkei Stock Average would make a rapid recovery. However, the recovery failed to materialise.

Leeson left a note reading "I'm Sorry" and fled Singapore on 23 February. Losses eventually reached £827 million (US$1.4 billion), twice the bank's available trading capital. After a failed bailout attempt, Barings, which had been the United Kingdom's oldest merchant bank, was declared insolvent on 26 February.[12]

After fleeing to Malaysia, Thailand, and finally Germany, Leeson was arrested in Frankfurt and extradited back to Singapore on 20 November 1995, though his wife Lisa was allowed to return to England. While he had authorisation for the 16 January short straddle, he was charged with fraud for deceiving his superiors about the riskiness of his activities and the scale of his losses. Several observers have placed much of the blame on the bank's own deficient internal auditing and risk management practices. Indeed, the Singapore authorities' report on the collapse was scathingly critical of Barings management, claiming that senior officials knew or should have known about the "five eights" account.

Leeson pleaded guilty to two counts of "deceiving the bank's auditors and of cheating the Singapore exchange",[2] including forging documents.[13] Sentenced to six and a half years in Changi Prison in Singapore, he was released from prison in 1999, having been diagnosed with colon cancer, which he survived despite grim forecasts at the time.

While in prison, in 1996, Leeson published an autobiography, Rogue Trader, detailing his acts. A review in the financial columns of the New York Times stated, "This is a dreary book, written by a young man very taken with himself, but it ought to be read by banking managers and auditors everywhere."[3] In 1999, the book was made into a film of the same name starring Ewan McGregor and Anna Friel.

The events also form the subject matter of a 1996 television documentary made by Adam Curtis, titled Inside Story Special: £830,000,000 - Nick Leeson and the Fall of the House of Barings.[14]

Aftermath

Leeson's first wife Lisa divorced him while he was in prison. He married Leona Tormay in 2003,[15] and they now live in Barna, County Galway, in the west of Ireland. He is a regular guest on the after-dinner and keynote speaking circuit[16][17] and occasional guest lecturer at the nearby National University of Ireland. He was appointed commercial manager of Galway United F.C. in April 2005, rising to the position of general manager in late November 2005. By July 2007 he had become the club's CEO[18] but in February 2011, Leeson resigned his position.[19] He still deals in the stock markets, but only with his own money.[18]

In June 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 that the prolonged periods of severe stress that affected Leeson's mental and physical health have parallels in many other people's lives.

In 2013 he appeared in Celebrity Apprentice Ireland on TV3.[20]

As of early 2018, Leeson is a Head Educator at a trading academy called Bizintra.[21]

He placed fourth in the twenty-second edition of Celebrity Big Brother.

Trading jacket

On 5 April 2007, The Guardian newspaper reported that KPMG, the liquidators of Barings PLC, had sold a trading jacket thought to have been worn by Nick Leeson while trading on SIMEX in Singapore. The jacket was offered for sale on eBay but it failed to reach its reserve price despite a highest bid of £16,100. It was subsequently sold for £21,000.[22] In October 2007 a similar jacket used by Leeson's team but not thought to have been worn by Leeson himself sold at auction for £4,000.[23]

Publications

  • Leeson, Nick; Whitley, Edward (March 1996). Rogue Trader: How I Brought Down Barings Bank and Shook the Financial World. ISBN 0-316-51856-5.
  • Leeson, Nick; Tyrrell, Ivan (July 2005). Back from the Brink: Coping with Stress. ISBN 0-7535-1075-8.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ "Leeson to have cancer operation". BBC News. 1998-08-08.
  2. 1 2 "Nick Leeson: biography part II". 2011-03-01. Retrieved 2012-02-23.
  3. 1 2 3 Floyd Norris (1996-03-31). "Upper-Class Twits Made Me Do It". New York Times. Retrieved 2012-02-23.
  4. ↑ Maeda, Martha (2010). The Complete Guide to Spotting Accounting Fraud & Cover-ups. Atlantic Publishing Company. ISBN 978-1-60138-212-2. Retrieved 15 August 2014.
  5. ↑ Hal S. Scott (2006). International Finance: Transactions, Policy, and Regulation. Foundation Press. ISBN 978-1-59941-263-4.
  6. ↑ "Nick Leeson: biography part I". 2011-03-01. Retrieved 2012-02-23.
  7. ↑ "How Leeson broke the bank". BBC News. 22 June 1999.
  8. ↑ "How account 88888 sank Britain's oldest bank". The Independent. 16 February 1996.
  9. ↑ "The man who broke the queen's bank". The Irish Times. 24 February 1996.
  10. ↑ "Barings rogue trader Nick Leeson: 'Money is not my motivation'". The Telegraph. 19 August 2012.
  11. ↑ Sam Webb (25 April 2013). "Rogue trader Nick Leeson contemplated paying fellow inmates to kill him after he was jailed over collapse of Barings Bank". Daily Mail.
  12. ↑ "25 Million Pounds". 27 December 2009. Archived from the original on 29 March 2012. Retrieved 23 February 2012.
  13. ↑ "Nick Leeson: Rogue Trader". Crime & Investigation Network.
  14. ↑ "Inside Story Special - BBC One London - 12 June 1996". BBC Genome.
  15. ↑ McDonald, Brian (2003-06-14). "Rogue trader Leeson ties knot with Irish love". Irish Independent. Retrieved 2012-02-23.
  16. ↑ Culshaw, Peter (2009-01-08). "Nick Leeson Lecturing Others on The Current Recession". London: The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 2012-02-23.
  17. ↑ "Nick Leeson: Infamous Rogue Trader Responsible For The Collapse of Barings Bank In 1995". Retrieved 2012-02-23.
  18. 1 2 "Rogue trader Leeson 'eyes deals'". BBC News. 2007-03-07. Retrieved 2012-02-23.
  19. ↑ Brendan White (2 February 2011). "Leeson resigns Galway Utd CEO position". Archived from the original on 14 May 2012. Retrieved 23 February 2012.
  20. ↑ "Judges and Contestants". TV3.ie. Archived from the original on 27 September 2013. Retrieved 25 September 2013.
  21. ↑ "About us | Learn to Trade the Financial Markets - Bizintra". Bizintra. Retrieved 2018-04-24.
  22. ↑ Wearden, Graeme (2007-04-05). "Nick Leeson's jacket raises £21,000". London: The Guardian. Retrieved 2012-02-23.
  23. ↑ "Howard makes his mark at Norwood's Distressed Investing Dinner". Norwood. 16 October 2007. Archived from the original on 25 February 2012. Retrieved 23 February 2012.
  • Official website
  • Nick Leeson on IMDb
  • "Nick Leeson". The Guardian. 2008-09-19.
  • Works by or about Nick Leeson in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
  • Malcolm Borthwick (2005-02-23). "Leeson's legacy lives on in Singapore". BBC News.
  • "Business: The Economy How Leeson broke the bank". BBC News. 1999-06-22.
  • "Galway United Football Club".
  • Adeline Loh. "Singapore's Most Famous Convicts - Bank Bust". Archived from the original on 3 March 2016.
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