The weekend Barings died, I was at UBS, working out what a suddenly insolvent 233-year-old bank might do to the rest of us. By the following week, the oldest merchant bank in London had been sold to ING for one pound. Total, not per share. The cause was insultingly simple. Nick Leeson ran both the firm's Singapore trading desk and the back office meant to check it. One man wore both hats, and that led straight to £827 million of losses tucked into error account 88888, which only he could see…
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