Man loses $1.4 billion dollars of other people's money, becomes motivational speaker.

[NNadir]

Isn't life grand?

Nicholas Leeson (English, born February 25, 1967) was a derivatives trader whose unsupervised speculative trading caused the collapse of Barings Bank, the United Kingdom's oldest investment bank.

In the early 1990s, when employed by Barings, Leeson was appointed manager of a new operation in futures markets on the Singapore International Monetary Exchange (SIMEX). From 1992, Leeson made unauthorized speculative trades that at first made large profits for his employer, accounting for 10% of Barings' annual income. His luck later went sour, and he used a secret account (numbered 88888 -- a number considered very lucky in Chinese numerology) to hide his losses. This account was initially opened to hide a £20,000 trade of one his subordinates that had been recorded incorrectly. 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 from the Bank. 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 January 16, 1995, when Leeson placed a short straddle (an options trading strategy involving the sale of call and put options) 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 January 17, sending Asian markets, and Leeson's investments, into a tailspin. Leeson attempted to recoup his losses by making a series of increasingly risky new investments, this time betting that the Nikkei Stock Average would make a rapid recovery. But the recovery failed to materialize, and he succeeded only in digging a deeper hole. Realizing the gravity of the situation, Leeson left a note reading "I'm Sorry" and fled. Losses eventually reached £827 million ($1.4 billion at then-prevailing exchange rates), twice the bank's available trading capital. This led to the bank's collapse.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Leeson

He wants your sympathy. His wife left him. He had to spend six years in a Singapore prison, and it wasn't a nice place. He got cancer, but he got better.

Toward this end he has a website advertising his book, the movie about his life, and his new career as a motivational speaker.

http://www.nickleeson.com/biography/index.html

Thousands of people worked hard in that bank, invested their whole lives there, were loyal employees with families, hopes and dreams. All of that was swept away.

Isn't life wonderful?

[mainegreen]

1. I remember that!

I remember thinking that it was bonkers that the banking system was set up to allow that. Then I learned about the stock market and how that works.

x(