He lost £800million and brought down Barings Bank. Now, 30 years on, rogue trader NICK LEESON says: ‘I’m not lying awake worrying about the victims’

Thirty years ago, a working-class trader from Watford was the undisputed king of the Singapore International Monetary Exchange (SIMEX).

He was bold, bright, alarmingly young and seemed to be making more money for Barings Bank than all the other traders on SIMEX put together.

‘I was the ascending star! There were no limitations. I was getting to the top, making all the important decisions. I was the guy, and it felt amazing,’ says Nick Leeson today.

One of his fellow traders said at the time: ‘We all admired Nick because he had almost no fear. It was like watching someone juggling with hand grenades – we always thought if he dropped one, he would blow himself up.’

And, of course, he did.

In 1995, Nick blew everything up: himself, his marriage, his colleagues, his bosses. 

And, when his hidden losses of £827million were finally discovered – in a secret back office ‘errors’ account numbered 88888 – that was also the end of Barings, one of the UK’s oldest private banks (founded in 1762) and occasional banker to the Queen.

Nick Leeson (left), a working-class trader from Watford, was the undisputed king of the Singapore International Monetary Exchange (SIMEX)

Ewan McGregor played Leeson in the 1999 film Rogue Trader

We know the story. There’s been a movie about it starring Ewan McGregor. Endless documentaries and books. Many of us watched it unfold on the news when, on February 23, 1995, Nick and his wife Lisa went on the run from their apartment in Singapore, sparking an international manhunt. 

We read how, as they lay on sunbeds drinking cocktails in an upscale Malaysian hotel, Barings officials were discovering that all the money was gone.

We may remember his eventual arrest at Frankfurt airport before he was shunted off to prison, first in Germany and then in much less friendly Singapore, where he spent four and a half years – skinny, covered in sores and half-dead with colon cancer – before he was released.

It’s quite a tale. A plasterer’s son bankrupting super-posh Barings, which in the end was sold to Dutch bank ING for a single pound.

Of course, 30 years is a long time. But the Nick Leeson sitting in front of me in a hotel lobby in Ireland insists he’s not that different to the chump in the baseball cap.

‘I haven’t had an epiphany; my values are still the same.

‘There’s been everything – shame, guilt, remorse and embarrassment – until, eventually, you move on,’ he says.

‘I’m not at peace with what happened – it will always be the most embarrassing thing of my life – but I’m at peace with myself. I’m not lying awake worrying about the victims. I’m always open to being proved wrong, but I don’t think there were many victims.’

I am not sure the Barings family would agree. Or all the shareholders and employees. Or perhaps his ex-wife Lisa, to whom he has not spoken since early 1996.

But over the years, Nick, 57 – who lives in Galway with his second wife Leona and their family – has grown a thick skin.

‘I’m more OK about it as the years pass. It’s all about building up your self-worth and self-belief.’

He joined Barings in his early 20s and, at first, it all went brilliantly: ‘I was quick to learn, diligent and I was good with numbers – though I failed my maths A-level.’

And in 1992 Nick and his new wife Lisa moved to Singapore where, despite having no trading experience, he was put in charge of the bank’s future trading operation on SIMEX. ‘It was gambling and very addictive,’ he says today. ‘Suddenly, there was no limit to what you could do. It blew my mind.’

Inevitably, there were mistakes; the first, worth about £20,000.

But, unusually, Nick also had responsibility for ‘back office’ settlement – in essence, checking up on himself.

‘There’s been everything – shame, guilt, remorse and embarrassment – until, eventually, you move on,’ Leeson says

In 1992 Nick and his new wife Lisa moved to Singapore where, despite having no trading experience, he was put in charge of the bank’s future trading operation on SIMEX

So instead of coming clean, he simply opened an ‘errors’ account and dumped it in there, hoping to trade his way out of it by betting on the movement of the Nikkei 225, which monitors the Japanese stock exchange. 

That was the start of it, and on it went. A black hole of debt that got ever bigger. Everyone thought he had a secret client with astonishingly deep pockets. But the companies were fake. It was all the bank’s money.

‘I wasn’t psychotic – I knew I shouldn’t be doing it. But the alternative was putting up my hand and saying: ‘I’m failing.’ So I went on and on.’

He continued for nearly three years. Lying, forging documents, drinking heavily . . . but, on the face of it, making millions (in his final year he made the bank £28 million) – and nobody wanted to jinx it. So there was no supervision from head office. Virtually no checks and balances.

Towards the end, alarm bells were going off in other banks, with employees told not to trade with Barings. But still the top brass left him alone, as he tried to win it all back. ‘I was gambling, desperate, waiting for my eureka moment,’ he recalls.

In the last six weeks before the collapse, more than £400 million was sent from London. Eventually, of course, it bottomed out.

‘The bank had run out of money. We’d used it all – incompetence and negligence on a grand scale.’ He and Lisa fled after leaving a note in his office saying ‘I’m sorry’ to his staff.

One thing in Nick’s favour is that he has never tried to duck the blame. Or considered – as many others did at the time – he’d been a scapegoat for criminally negligent bosses at Barings, too greedy for success to ask questions.

‘They were really bad at their jobs, but that’s the biggest criticism I can make. It was all me,’ he says firmly.

He certainly paid for his actions.

First, he spent nine months in prison in Germany where he battled (unsuccessfully) against extradition to Singapore.

Leeson is arrested at Frankfurt airport. He was in prison in Germany for nine months fighting (unsuccessfully) against extradition to Singapore

Leeson surrounded by police in Singapore, where he was sentenced to six and a half years

It was here that he wrote his memoir, Rogue Trader (later adapted into a 1999 film starring McGregor).

When he was advised he could be looking at 84 years in Singapore, he decided to end his life. So he met up with two Italian inmates who had connections to the Mafia and, after talking it over with Lisa, brokered a deal for them to kill him in return for £10,000. It sounds bananas, but he talks about it calmly today.

‘I’m a very black and white person. I couldn’t bare the uncertainty,’ he says.

In the end, however, he was sentenced to six and a half years in a Singapore jail.

It was horrendous. Three to a 9ft by 6ft cell. No mattresses. One blanket per prisoner. Rice for every meal. Temperatures of 100 degrees. Endless fighting between Triad gangsters and 31 days in solitary for refusing to share his cell with gangs.

Shortly after, he was diagnosed with colon cancer, shackled to a metal bed for his treatment in the prison wing of a local hospital and, after just five days and the removal of a tumour, was returned to sleep on his cell floor with 38 staples holding his wound together.

Lisa visited once in early 1996, then filed for divorce. Rumour has it she later married an investment banker.

Nick was eventually released, after four and a half years, and returned to Watford jobless, wifeless and moneyless. Because, other than his (relatively) modest salary and bonuses, he squirrelled no money away for himself.

Despite reports at the time, there was no yacht. No flash car. No hidden bank account containing £50 million. ‘I was never very materialistic,’ he says. ‘It was never about the money, just the success.’

It was back in Watford that he met Leona, a beautician from Ireland. He beat the odds and made a full recovery from his cancer, and they have been living in Galway for 22 years with Leona’s two children and their 20-year-old son in a five-bedroom house.

Leona has always known the whole story – ‘She knows me for who I am.’ But it was only on the 20th anniversary that they told their children he’d been to prison and been married before. ‘That was quite a lot for them to take in,’ he says.

Of course, the trouble with being the most famous rogue trader ever, is that many people recognise him – and have an opinion. One of which is that he has never shown enough remorse. Maybe the smirk and swagger at Frankfurt airport didn’t help.

‘Well, what can I do? I’ve said ‘Sorry’,’ says Nick. ‘People also complain that I’m still dining out on it, milking it. And I am – regularly! It’s my story and I’m story-telling. I don’t go looking for the work, but it comes to me. And I was never going to get a job back in finance.’

So he’s been on Celebrity Big Brother, launched a trading game called 88888 and a podcast chatting to other rogue traders is in the pipeline.

He makes a good living out of it all, clearly adores his wife and children but, 30 years on, still yearns for success.

‘It really matters to me. I would love to be more obviously successful from a business perspective, but that’s not going to happen. Because whatever I do, I’ll always be Nick Leeson, the disgraced banker. But now I’m OK with that.’

***
Read more at DailyMail.co.uk