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Few stories have grabbed the world's headlines quite like the
collapse of Barings merchant bank in late February 1995.
Trusted with the finances of royalty and aristocracy for over two
hundred years, Barings had apparently been brought down by the covert
trading activites of just one man, leaving the bank with losses of
around £850 million.
The fate of Nick Leeson is now well known. But, until the publication
of Rogue Trader, Leeson's role in the affair had been shrouded
in rumour and speculation. The story he has to tell surpasses the
feats of imagination of the most creative novelist: the candid, compelling
and true confession of a pure gamber who found himself sucked into
a spiral of terrifying loss.
Rogue Trader takes us from Nick Leeson's
humble beginnings as a Watford plasterer's son
to the very heart of the cut-and-thrust empire
he made his own: SIMEX, the Singapore money market
that witnessed both Nick's phenomenal rise to prominence
and devastating chaos in one of the most stressful
jobs in the world, showing us the frenetic culture
of the trading pit revealing not only he forces
that led him to use the infamous 88888 account,
but also the ways in which he dealt with the losses,
avoided detection, and participated in the near-farcical
endgame which sparked the most extraordinary news
story in recent times. The world marvelled as he
and his then-wife Lisa (who until then has known
nothing of the losses) made their escape as the
bank collapsed around them, only to return to acknowledge
the results of Nick's activities and face their
onerous consequences.
Pressure, pace, error: Nick reveals in breathtaking
style the inside story of this amazing chain of
events. Crackling with dialogue and characters,
in a narrative as crisp as any thriller, Rogue
Trader is the best-seller and hugely compelling
account of a man shaped by events that proved beyond
this control.
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