Barings Lost is the story of the collapse of Barings Bank. How and why unmonitored trading by a single dealer brought a venerable institution to its knees is revealed through careful analyses of a long series of events. Nick Leeson's role in bringing down the bank is central to the story. The exciting early days of his life in Singapore, his rise within the bank, his dealing wins and losses, and his eventual flight, all make fascinating reading.
The definitive, classic account of the fall of the House of Baring, the oldest merchant bank in London, in 1995 and the ultimate rogue trader, Nick Leeson, who brought down the venerable institution with speculative investing. John Gapper, associate editor of the Financial Times, and his coauthor Nicholas Denton, now founder of Gawker Media, interviewed all the major players involved in the collapse of one of England's oldest banks. All That Glitters reveals the Faustian deal struck between the whizz-kid derivatives traders who seemed to be bringing in huge profits and the old guard who were happy to pocket them without asking too many questions. Gapper and Denton present a thrilling, in-depth account of Nick Leeson's motives and methods for hiding the unauthorized speculative trading as well as the final days of Barings and the last-ditch attempts by politicians and bankers to save the bank.
Examines the circumstances behind the downfall of Barings Bank in 1995, describing the closed network of privilege, greed, and incompetance that enabled rogue trader Nick Leeson to lose hundreds of millions of pounds speculating in the Far East.
Provides an inside account of the shocking bankruptcy of the two-hundred-year-old British bank and the twenty-eight-year-old rogue trader in Singapore who caused its collapse. Reprint. PW.
Risk Management consists of 8 Parts and 18 Chapters covering risk management, market risk methodologies (including VAR and stress testing), credit risk in derivative transactions, other derivatives trading risks (liquidity risk, model risk and operational risk), organizational aspects of risk management and operational aspects of derivative trading. The volume also covers documentation/legal aspects of derivative transactions (including ISDA documentary framework), accounting treatment (including FASB 133 and IAS 39 issues), taxation aspects and regulatory aspects of derivative trading affecting banks and securities dealers (including the Basel framework for capital to be held against credit and market risk).
This book is for anyone who wants to know what truly lies behind the scandals and disasters of global business which marred the first few years of the 21st century. It examines why companies fail, finding the reasons few, yet all too common. It also explores what the prudent investor, board member or manager should be alert to but often is not.
Thor Bjorgolfsson is a self-styled adventure capitalist with an addiction to debt and an insatiable appetite for business deals who became Iceland's first billionaire. After 10 years establishing his financial empire with alco-pops and beer in the lawless 'Wild East' of newly-capitalist Russia in the 1990s, he moved on to merging, floating, spinning off and privatising businesses from Finland to Sweden, Poland, Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece and the Czech Republic. On his 40th birthday, and worth $3.5 billion, he was sitting on top of the world; only 250 people in it were richer than him. His most spectacular triumph was the takeover of Iceland's second-largest bank, Landsbanki - he had expected his investment's value to double or treble in four years, and instead it rose ten-fold. But when financial meltdown hit Iceland in October 2008, Landsbanki crashed and burned, taking Bjorgolfsson with it. Within 12 months he had lost 3.3 billion euros - 98.5% of his wealth - and was treated as a scapegoat in his native country for supposedly bringing about the disaster. Faced with appalling debts, Bjorgolfsson has made good on his promises to repay his creditors, and at the age of 47 is now a billionaire once again.
In 1995, the Baring Brothers collapsed over a weekend, brought down by the 'rogue trader' Nick Leeson. Utilizing British and American archives, this work charts Baring Brothers development from wool merchants to one of the most powerful global financial institutions. It also analyses the errors which led to its downfall.
As strategic business models are important to understand the transformative operations of an enterprise system, for present and future competitiveness, Betz's exploration into both manufacturing and financial firms, along with retailing firms and conglomerates, broadens the business literature.
This book analyzes in depth all major derivatives debacles of the last half century including the multi-billion losses and/or bankruptcy of Metallgesellschaft (1994), Barings Bank (1995), Long Term Capital Management (1998), Amaranth (2006), Société Générale (2008) and AIG (2008). It unlocks the secrets of derivatives by telling the stories of institutions which played in the derivative market and lost big. For some of these unfortunate organizations it was daring but flawed financial engineering which brought them havoc. For others it was unbridled speculation perpetrated by rogue traders whose unchecked fraud brought their house down.Should derivatives be feared “as financial weapons of mass destruction” or hailed as financial innovations which through efficient risk transfer are truly adding to the Wealth of Nations? By presenting a factual analysis of how the malpractice of derivatives played havoc with derivative end-user and dealer institutions, a case is made for vigilance not only to market and counter-party risk but also operational risk in their use for risk management and proprietary trading. Clear and recurring lessons across the different stories call not only for a tighter but also “smarter” control system of derivatives trading and should be of immediate interest to financial managers, bankers, traders, auditors and regulators who are directly or indirectly exposed to financial derivatives.The book groups cases by derivative category, starting with the simplest and building up to the most complex — namely, Forwards, Futures, Options and Swaps in that order, with applications in commodities, foreign exchange, stock indices and interest rates. Each chapter deals with one derivative debacle, providing a rigorous and comprehensive but non-technical elucidation of what happened.The book is translated and available in French, Russian, Simplified Chinese and Korean.
