How a 28 Year Old Man Destroyed England’s Oldest Bank

hi welcome to another episode of cold fusion over 230 years through world wars the rise and fall of nations and industries revolutions and uprisings bearings bank persevered founded in 1762 bering's bank was an english institution associated with class longevity and strength so much so that even the queen of england had an account with them then in 1995 this grand banking legacy was destroyed brought down by a single rogue trader by the name of nick leeson [Music] so let's explore how a 28-year-old from hertfordshire was able to single-handedly destroy an [Music] [Music] nick leeson was born in watford hedfordshire to a middle-class home he was a confident but unimpressive student despite his average educational performance he was eventually able to secure a job with morgan stanley he worked in their futures and options department giving support to the traders on the front line in 1989 two years after starting with morgan stanley nick leeson approached his supervisor and asked to be promoted leeson wanted to be a trader and he felt that he deserved the promotion unfortunately his manager didn't agree and the request was turned down but leeson knew what he wanted and subsequently he quit morgan stanley on his quest to become a stock trader he would come across bering's bank and send in his application apparently he'd never heard of the bank before submitting the application at that stage i probably would be happy to say that i'd never heard of bearings but it was a famous old man so there's no bearings in watford bearings was no ordinary bank it catered to the most affluent class of people in the banking industry the bearing's name was respected it was the safest of all banks and they could raise capital very easily though behind the scenes its operations were struggling to keep up with the modern banking world leeson described the securities trading department of bearings as being in stark contrast to modern banks like morgan stanley just a totally different environment there was um you know morgan stanley everything was it was new you know all of the equipment was new um the furniture was new bearings everything is you know just tacky i suppose i can't describe it any other way from his position as one of the bank's bookkeepers it didn't take him very long to find flaws in how the bank operated bering's bank was crumbling during a time when most other financial institutions were thriving feeding on the good standing that comes with two centuries of global trading it would survive though much like it always had but what bearings wouldn't survive would be hiring nick leeson while many in the industry including leeson possessed the intelligence to succeed leeson also had a confidence and a way with people that he would wield like a secret weapon he was charming friendly and personable to his colleagues but not just for the sake of being polite he saw his co-workers not as potential companions but rather a means to an end despite working at banks for multiple years he never considered his co-workers as friends he did not like them he did not respect them but he knew that sometimes he needed them to get what he wanted it's very easy for me to get on with people but i don't necessarily have to like you or any of the people that i work with to get on with them so i can i come in i do my job i do it to the best of my ability and then at the end of the day if you're going to ask me out for a drink i'm not going to go out for a drink with you because i don't like you nick leeson impressed his superiors at bearings with his keen eye for identifying and solving issues within the bank not long into his employment he was sent overseas to chase down massive sums of money these were debts that were long overdue but never followed up on bering's bank had a habit of making deals that would fall between the cracks and it was nick leeson's fresh eyes that would hunt down these deals and claim back what the bank was owed leeson managed to find close to 100 million pounds the equivalent of twice of that today when factoring inflation he describes this kind of mismanagement as being fairly typical for bearings things were looking good for leeson he was impressing his employees and while in jakarta he met a fellow bearing staff member by the name of lisa sims for the first time in his career he found a colleague that he genuinely liked and in 1992 the two of them married that same month his years of hard work finally paid off when berings offered him the position of a trader he would be in charge of a newly founded futures division in singapore this was the opportunity that leeson had been waiting for and quite possibly the worst decision that bearings had ever made approved to trade in singapore and having convinced his wife lisa to move it was go time trading primarily on the nikkei japan's top 225 company stock index nick thoroughly enjoyed the stress and pressure of features trading essentially betting on if the price will rise or fall if the market went the way he predicted he made money if not he rapidly lost money he was confident in himself and beloved by his staff but later that year the market began fluctuating violently and leeson's team started making mistakes these bad bets were adding up and if they weren't rectified bearings stood to lose large sums of money out of the fear of losing the job that he worked so hard to obtain and fuelled by his own self-confidence nick decided to hide the losing bets from his employers back home in order to do this he altered the software of a separate hidden account so that his bosses in england couldn't keep track he named this account the five eighths so account kept his losing trades active but hidden he assumed that inevitably he'd be able to cancel out the losses with future wins but there was only one problem with this margin payments while the losing trades remained open payments still had to be made in order to keep the trades going he was going to need external funding he just needed enough money to keep the failed trades going and when the market turned around he'd be home free leeson would hide his mistakes and then when the market went his way he would fix his mistakes in private nick had to keep digging into a deeper pit of lies his bosses over in england could never find out what happened he asked his superiors for funds to cover stock futures that he bought for clients only this time the clients didn't exist trusting that leeson had the bank's best interests in mind the branch over in england happily sent him ever-increasing amounts of money without ever thinking to double check where the money was actually going surprisingly for a time the system worked leeson described living with the lies as easy after the first two days from the first time i do anything i'm not expecting to survive anymore anything more than two days to me it's obvious if they can't see it after two days then who says they're going to see it after 200 days 500 days a thousand days you don't get confident but you you're getting away with it as nick leeson continued to cover up his trading mistakes bearings itself was making massive losses and that was just the amount they knew about something had to be done so they recruited peter norris he was to oversee operations from the moment he began looking at the bank's records norris was shocked at what he found the books were a mess how shocked were you by the lack of control in that when you got in there and began to work there i was shocked um because i didn't feel that it should have been allowed to to reach that point he saw a bank on the brink of collapse with ever-increasing debt and a loose grip on its standing as a powerful player in the financial world he brought in a team to clean up the mess but the dire situation that shocked norris was merely a fraction of the problem he was yet to find the hidden account in singapore that would eventually collapse the entire bank meanwhile leeson's plan to gradually cover his losses and emerge victorious had not gone to plan by the end of 1992 his losses had only grown now amounting to four million pounds seeing no way out there was only one thing to do gamble even harder going against the bank's rules he bought hundreds of additional futures in hopes of covering his losses he bought so many orders that if the market was to move in his favor it would completely wipe out his debt he believed he could make his money back without anyone ever finding out what he had done at this point he was struggling to sleep at night but surprisingly it worked by july of 1993 he had covered his losses leeson described the past nine months as a living nightmare but he had done it and come out relatively unscathed unfortunately for all involved leeson had not learned his lesson in fact what he had learned was how to commit fraud and get away with it rather than take away a valuable lesson in risk management leeson saw an opportunity to get filthy rich nick was convinced by his past successes that he would eventually be able to trade out of any amount of losses and maintain his reputation as an industry legend in his mind he was a genius that had beaten the system but in reality what had happened was just dumb luck meanwhile back in england bearings was recouping losses and the work of peter norris was paying off things were going well and the bank was recovering but the work wasn't over so bearings brought in a new head of in-house trading rob baker baker was a smart man and he valued tight oversight unlike his predecessors he was cynical of profits that couldn't be easily accounted for because of this nick leeson's department quickly caught his eye you see bering's bank was paying nick gleason to fund requests for new clients and they noticed that some of these clients who actually in reality didn't exist were not keeping up with their fees an internal audit was ordered and in july of 1993 the auditors flew to singapore by the end of 1993 leeson had found himself in the same trouble as last time only this time doubling up his strategy didn't work by the time baker came face to face with leeson his secret account was now hiding losses of 94 million pounds nick would sometimes lose a million pounds in a single day rob baker saw through leeson's confidence recognizing a struggling and immature man who didn't take too kindly to being overseen but what he could not have predicted was what was truly going on behind the scenes leeson was now extremely worried he understood that if the auditors found just one document referring to the secret five-eighths account where his losses were hidden his entire scheme would unravel but luck would be in his favor again as the orders has surprisingly found nothing they come in and they don't test any records so i can't be happier they didn't test one record one report yeah i mean it's not an audit leeson would later state that it was general incompetence from the bearing staff that allowed him to go on undiscovered but rob baker has a different theory nick was supposedly making the bank a bunch of money so they didn't bother to question the fact that nick was both the head of singapore trading operations and in charge of the singapore accounting and despite the strange accounts not paying any fees bearings thought hey if it's making us money don't fix it by september of 1994 the secret five-eighths account was hiding losses of 160 million pounds leeson's fraud entered new levels of complexity he decided to use the secret account to buy futures from himself at extremely discounted prices allowing him to fake massive profits nick was now in a deep vicious unsustainable cycle it could only continue so long as he had access to the fund that berings would send him for fake clients his life became a runaway train in secret he was losing millions daily but in public he was becoming the star trader that he always wanted to be neither could exist without the other at this time leeson became known as the king of the exchange he was making a name for himself and had convinced the world that he was a success in december of 1994 leeson was flown to new york here berings held a traders conference and nick was the star after all according to the records he had made the bank 28 million pounds that year alone he was the poster boy of bering's bank and celebrated for a success but some of the other traders weren't as excited they had done their own maths and something didn't add up but the bering's bank executives paid no attention to these doubts the bank was on the way up it even got to the stage when nick was asking for hundreds of thousands of pounds per day for margin payments and without question it was given to him by the end of 1994 based solely on lies confidently told and expertly hidden bering's bank had transferred 75 of their entire capital into the hands of one man nick leeson 330 million pounds the pressure had become too much for leeson and he had finally reached breaking point how could he live a lie so massive on a christmas trip to ireland he told his wife that he did not want to return back to singapore but lisa didn't understand why he would turn down such a great opportunity for their family nick couldn't bring himself to tell her the truth so he returned to singapore in the new year why lie i'm his wife why should he lie i mean i suppose lots of wives think that when they find out their husbands have been having an affair and they think oh you know they've been leading a double life and that's what it feels like not that with nick's had an effect feels like nick well nick was leading a double life [Music] there was no economic or political factors impacting the japanese market so nick leeson bet on stability and for a while it was working for a couple of weeks he was making a profit as the market remained steady if this kept going his losses could be erased and he would be victorious once again but on january 17th at 5 46 a.m a massive earthquake struck the japanese city of kobe it killed 6 000 and displaced 45 000 the japanese nikkei stock index in which nick was trading absolutely crumbled it was bad you know um but again it's living to fight another day really i mean you know with without the choice of running away from it you know i had to um bearings were still paying me money don't forget he's still paying me masses of money you know i mean we'd ask for sometimes for 100 million dollars they'd pay it with the market running away from him he was desperate he made one final bet buying thousands more futures contracts in an attempt to prop up the market he was hoping that this move would be substantial enough to fight against the crash it was another failed gamble in a single day he lost a further 50 million pounds but he continued down this path he asked the bank for more money which they would provide on the basis of falsified profits fictitious profits manufactured from the secret five-eighths account while bearings continued to believe leeson's deception they were happy with his falsified prophets and trusted that he was doing well they believed that he was taking advantage of the chaotic market since the earthquake and making huge sums of money for everyone involved at one stage auditors found a 50 million pound loss that nick forgot to hide frantically nick forged a bank loan document with scissors and glue to cover it up amazingly the auditors believed the document even though it had from nick and lisa at the top the fax signature from their home machine then finally after all the close calls audits unimaginable debt and luck both good and bad leeson's time was up on the 17th of february a single clerk in singapore noticed some discrepancies in leeson's accounts and brought them to his attention after failing to deflect the clerk's enquiries for a week he knew that this time he couldn't make this one go away feeling that the walls were finally closing in nick told the clerk that his wife was unwell he had to go and visit her and he'd be back in 45 minutes of course this was a lie nick frantically rushed home to collect his wife packed up his belongings and they both drove to the airport and boarded a flight to a luxury resort in malaysia that week with nick gone and not being able to provide any more distractions the bearings officers from london were finally able to access one of leeson's accounts it was a horrific disaster they knew straight away that bankruptcy was inevitable so senior managers within bearings bank knew that there were vast differences between what lisa was asking for and what you were being given yeah you were never told yeah should you have been told yes i should i should why didn't you know well fundamentally because it wasn't raised in that way why not i don't know don't know bearings appealed to england central bank for support they were desperate for a bailout before the markets opened again on monday but it wasn't possible leeson's losses had multiplied to 830 million pounds the equivalent of 2 billion us dollars today it was clear that the bank couldn't be saved after two long centuries of banking bearings collapsed on the 20th of november 1995 leeson was arrested in germany and extradited to singapore he was charged with two counts of deceiving the bank's auditors and of cheating the singapore exchange he received a six and a half year prison sentence but he was released after four years for good behaviour [Music] in all of this leeson maintains a dismissive and blameless attitude towards the events that caused the crash in his mind the fault lies with those who ran bearings and not him why didn't those people who ran bearings come to you and say what are you doing because they're stupid they don't understand the business and they should never been in the position that they were in especially people like tony horse he was supposed to be controlling the global treasury function he was supposed to understand derivatives he didn't and he would pay the money every single day would accept you know pretty ridiculous explanations for me it wouldn't happen at morgan stanley at variance they had a lot of idiots basically in every one of the controlling functions and you were creating a large amount of profits fictitiously yeah it's complete amazement but um as you get to know the people at bearings you can then understand the amazement a lot of them are just bumbling fools although his arrogance is distasteful the law was inclined to agree with him the courts found bearings to be responsible for the deficit in internal auditing and risk management their carelessness allowed the fraud to spiral out of control but this shouldn't distract from the fact that hordes of people lost their jobs and their money during the bearings failure in the fallout from the collapse dutch bank ing bought bearings for a single pound they later sold off various assets today bearings exists only as a cautionary tale a lesson to banks across the globe that accountability and careful oversight comes before blind trust and the thrill of profits and a reminder to long-standing institutions that nothing is eternal leeson's life has been consistently strange since his imprisonment being somewhat of a household name for older generations he has dipped in and out of the public eye even competing in the 2018 season of celebrity big brother going into the big brother house we're going to be in a confined environment there are things that are going to annoy me about people i'm sure he went on the run and became at the time the world's most wanted man so at the time it was crazy i was on every news channel that you can imagine the newspapers were all covering the story interpol were looking for me so wherever you turned around there was a picture of me so that my friends is the wild and twisting story of nick gleason a story of how one man got himself into an ever deeper hole until he destroyed the oldest bank in england so thanks for watching if you enjoyed the episode be sure to subscribe to cold fusion i cover anything in science and technology business and history so what do you guys think about this all let me know in the comments section below if you do want to discuss the video a bit further head on over to the cold fusion discord so this has been to go go and you're watching cold fusion so until next time [Music] cheers [Music] oh

Channel: ColdFusion

Views: 1,825,929

Rating: 4.9457512 out of 5

Keywords: Coldfusion, TV, Dagogo, Altraide, Technology, Apple, Google, Samsung, Facebook, Tesla

Id: avMbu6cc4Eo

Length: 22min 53sec (1373 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 04 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/FinaglingFink]

“28 year old stud destroys elderly English bankhole!” SEC interested now?

[u/Dr_SlapMD]

For those interested, there's a lot of parallels between Leeson/Kenny G:

Barings was brought down in 1995 by a massive trading loss caused by fraudulent trading by its head derivatives trader in Singapore, Nick Leeson.

Leeson was supposed to be arbitraging, seeking to profit from differences in the prices of Nikkei 225 futures contracts listed on the Osaka Securities Exchange in Japan and on the Singapore International Monetary Exchange. However, instead of buying on one market and immediately selling on another market for a small profit, using the strategy approved by his superiors Leeson bought on one market then held on to the contract, gambling on the future direction of the Japanese markets.

According to Eddie George, Governor of the Bank of England, Leeson began doing this at the end of January 1992. Due to a series of internal and external events, his unhedged losses escalated rapidly.😭😭😭

Leeson was general manager for Barings' trading on the Singapore International Monetary Exchange. However, Barings circumvented normal accounting, internal control and audit safeguards by making Leeson head of settlement operations for SIMEX, charged with ensuring accurate accounting for the unit. These positions would normally have been held by two different employees. With authority to settle his own trades, Leeson was able to operate with no supervision from London—an arrangement that made it easier for him to hide his losses.

After the collapse, several observers placed much of the blame on the bank's own deficient internal control and risk management practices. A number of people had raised concerns over Leeson's activities but were ignored.

       

Bredren..... Kenny dun MAAASSIVE fuk up dem zeen?

[u/madiXuncut]

Nobody missed Barrings. Good Job, Leeson.

[u/GilmourNZ]

IKR I actually checked that video out earlier this morning and was thinking of putting up a post about it.

How relatable is this whole thing to what happened with barings right? My mind was blown watching this 😳🤯

[u/Peterthinking]

Kenny and him. Both "buy one more day" guys.

[u/Chunky-cheeese]

Nice one! When they talk about his 2 billion (in today’s money) loss, then you look at Citadels Q2 168 billion dollar loss, kind of makes you laugh, he’s a small fry compared to griffin!

[u/Dudejustnah]

What puzzled me was what actually happens when a bank declares bankruptcy? How do the creditors (like share holders who wants to sell) get paid?

[u/Jezzy14]

Watched it at 1.5x speed. I enjoyed it, thanks for sharing!

[u/ultimateChampions68]

!remindme!