Tuesday 27 January 2015

Whatever happened to him?

A pretty conventional Adam Curtis doc from 1996 about Nick Leeson, "the man who brought down Barings Bank." Worth watching for the interview with the man himself, who is brazenly unrepentant and rather odd.


 

What's interesting about Leeson is, as far as anyone has been able to tell, he didn't actually profit from the giant fraud he committed. He was just trying to cover up the losses he made early on into his new job on the Singapore Stock Exchange, and had to keep going until someone found out. Perhaps this quirk prevented people from drawing any deeper conclusions about finance from the case.

Funny by the way, how many key 90s figures came from Watford: Leeson, Mo Mowlam, Geri Halliwell and Gareth Southgate.