Jay's oeuvre: Account No.8888

Account No.8888
Tuesday, July 25, 2006

(from - a documentary in our Strategy class about Nick Leeson.)

Nick Leeson ..looks a normal guy who has the wonderful capability to charm the people surrounding him. He is a manager of a Football team, a job he has earned with so much effort.Apart from that he has a book and a royalty from a movie made on that book.
Most likely u willl find this guy delivery what is a "post dinner talk" where he explains
how he duped an age old bank to be sold for 1 pound.
Flshback ...Early 90s....
Nick was an ambitious young man when he moved from Morgan Stanley to Barings Bank ( the oldest merchant bank from England). The oldest bank had a laid back organisational structure. So, they were overly excited to bring back the glory days when Nick Leeson newly moved into thier futures business(Singapore) and showed profits.. But thier faith was toyed with:-

Nick would ask for money from the London office which was passed to him without proper investigation.Nick would say he needed the money for Clients to pay thier margin money to the exchange.He would buy futures on his own (with that money) and hide the losses in a secret account 8888. The auditors cud never detect that there existed such an account which had so much money leaked into it. Nick screwed the software/computer network so that the account was undetected. He would gamble with company's money. Once, he gambled heavily and pulled it off wiping all the previous losses. Then due to a natural calamity the market started to go southwards.. everyone was loosing money. Nick again decided to go against the tide and gamble by buying more futures... this time he asked for more than 800 million pounds. To his own surprise he managed to get it. Howver, he was unable to pull this gamble .. he figured heavy losses which he again hid in the secret account. Stress on him was increasing .. and often he would seek support from his wife, who was too happy with the amount of money that Nick would bring home.
And then he left some note and vanished ... the bell was rung by himself... but prolly it was too late .. by the time company found such heavy losses... it cudnt do anythng to bind it. The company was to be sold.
Barings had illustrious clientele like sultan of brunie.. but he cudnt be contacted on time... England govt. refused to bail it out.. and Barings was sold to ING for one pound.

Nick was sentanced 6 and half years of prison. He was let go aftr 4 yrs cause of good beahviour. He wrote a book "Rouge Trader" for which he recieved heaps of money and then it was made into a movie Nick again recieved a fortune as royalty. He is now a manager of a football club, A job he earned with hard effort cause of his credibilty issues in various attempts.

He delivers a lectures and shows and is interviewed as to HOW HE PULLED IT OFF.
His wife divorced him to marry another trader ( guess
!! she wont miss his money).

Whatta rejuvination after single handedly .. sinking a fortune.

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Nick's secretary : "Nick was such awesome guy ... dynamic (giggle)... shouting sell ..sell!!!!...... we all wanted to be so famous and popular .. when Nick was caught we were like wow! Mick u made it."

The then CEO :" I donno how he did it. prolly his intentions.. he was too smart..."

Nick :" they were Stupid" (giving him millions wthout enquiring why).
"I thought i will be caught in next 2 days.. but it never happened.. and i grew in confidence".

Labels: Business, Favorites