Nick Leeson 10 Years Later

With the story of the rogue Chinese copper trader still unfolding, readers may be interested in this interview with former trader Nick Leeson whose incorrect bets on the Nikkei toppled Britain's famous Barings bank, and landed him in a Singapore prison for over 4 years.  While in prison, he was divorced by his wife and developed cancer (they kept him chained to his bed, while he got treatment).  Now, he's living in Ireland and working as the general manager of a football club, doing the occasional speaking gigs on (of course) risk management:

What was it like being at the centre of such a phenomenal manhunt while you were on the run in the Far East?

It was terrifying. The first I knew that the bank had gone under was at the Shangri-La Hotel in Borneo.

I saw the Asian Wall Street Journal and the headline "British bank collapses". My first thought was: "Someone's in trouble". I genuinely didn't think it was me because I thought Barings could recover.

I began speed reading the story and my memory goes blank after that moment because I think I went into shock.

The key plan was to get home. I was very, very scared about being caught and going to prison in Asia. I had to go from Brunei to Bangkok to Abu Dhabi and then Frankfurt. By that time my picture was on every front page and every TV screen in every airport. I had my baseball cap pulled down and a scarf around my face. Only my eyes were showing, so I must have looked very suspicious. I was physically scared, my heart was pounding and I was sweating.

It was an unimaginable nightmare.

The whole thing makes for pretty compelling reading.

And of course, with the wild profits for traders here, and the exotic leveraged bets of hedge funds, isn't it a matter of time before America gets it's own Nick Leeson, and a stodgy, venerable institution comes tumbling down?

(found via Wall St. Folly)