Rogue Trader Book

When Nick Leeson was arrested in 1995 for bringing Barings Bank to its proverbial knees, it initially seemed as if he had single handedly crushed this most well-established and well-respected financial institution, and indeed it was he alone who found himself in a Singapore jail serving time for deceiving the auditors of Barings in a way "likely to cause harm to their reputation" and to cheating SIMEX (Singapore International Money Exchange). In Rogue Trader Leeson tells his own story with more than a hint of the bitterness--and, at times, suspended belief--of an ordinary Joe from Watford made scapegoat by a cast of characters who may not have been guilty by design, but certainly appear to be guilty of simply not adhering to the basic procedures which would have picked up any discrepancies long before any real damage was done. Hard to feel sorry for such wheeler- dealers, perhaps, and certainly hard to feel sorry for Leeson, but he manages to successfully tell an incredible story which moves at breakneck speed from his appointment as General Manager for Barings in Singapore to his fast and furious downfall, which began as a simple cover-up of a mistake by an inexperienced member of staff and ended in multi-million pound fraud, with earth-shattering repercussions across the financial markets of the world. Anyone who ever wondered how one man could do so much damage will find the explanation between the pages of Rogue Trader, but more than that they will also find a hugely compelling, tense and decidedly hair- raising story that defies imagination to the point where, if it had been written as fiction no one would ever believe it. --Susan HarrisonRead More