NICK LEESON, THE infamous ‘rogue trader’ (and columnist for TheJournal.ie) has apologised to his boss from bringing down Barings Bank in 1995.
Leeson and his former boss Peter Norris have been brought together for the first time by the BBC for Radio 4′s The Reunion. Some of Leesons former colleagues were also present for the recording of the programme.
Leeson incurred losses of £827 million for the bank in 1995. The BBC reports that he was reporting huge profits from his trading on the Singapore International Monetary Exchange. In fact, he was losing hundreds of millions.
He set up a secret account to hide the losses and he was found out when a discrepancy on the bank’s accounts was noticed.
Leeson spent three years in prison in Singapore for his actions.
Norris, who now the Chairman of Virgin Group Holdings, has said that he wanted to ‘punch Leeson’s lights out’ when it became clear what he had been doing. Another former colleage has said that he’s not sympathetic in the wake of the apology, because the former trader “lost a lot of people their livelihoods, their pensions and their family fortunes”.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say