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Don't have an account? But Leeson is not detached from the financial world. Despite the apparent seclusion, he is again profiting from international banking — this time legally, if indirectly, by talking about it. People want to know why. The former derivatives trader earns high fees for giving talks about regulation and shady financial practices to financial industry audiences in Britain, the US, Australia and South Africa. He also offers tips on handling stress and adversity. On the after-dinner circuit, the son of a plasterer enjoys rubbing shoulders with the likes of Mikhail Gorbachev, Stephen Fry and Aron Ralston , the American hiker who amputated his arm with a penknife to save his life.
I had a very exalted opinion of what success was. But I messed up — I made some stupid mistakes, I compounded them with even bigger ones. While in prison, Leeson contracted colon cancer and was divorced by his first wife. Lisa finished her exams on the Thursday and the next Monday she was working for Nikki Securities, commuting daily from Maid stone where she lived with Mum and Dad and she's back there now.
Her job as settlements clerk for the Japanese stockbroker company she describes as "the bottom rung". Unlike his future wife, he had no qualifications, having failed his maths A-level; but also unlike her, Nick Leeson was as ambitious as a magpie and smart enough to see that the action lay in the new and hazy world of futures, so new and hazy in fact that it was incomprehensible to the old school of bankers, whose lives had been spent in stocks and shares, tangible things that could be bought and, sold.
Dealing in futures is more usefully described as gambling, betting on how the market is going to move. Where markets are made and broken through the sheer power of volume. Like horse racing, if enough punters back a horse the odds come down. But fortunes in futures are made long before the horse has even put his nose out of the stable door, let alone taken the starter's "flag, just by buying and selling the odds.
A too-hasty move, and the market can crumble. Confidence and sheer chutzpah is all it takes. Nick Leeson had both in spades. Within four years he was on his way, working for Barings, the City's oldest and most patrician merchant bank. Sent out to Jakarta to sort out a paperwork-grounded confusion, he did a thorough job - saving them millions and wising up the while to the ease with which errors could be camouflaged to balance the books.
To speed up the process he requested assistance. It came in the shape of another Barings employee, Lisa Sims. It was love at first sight.
For Lisa the negative side is less the downfall of Barings not to mention the financial losses to the bond holders but the depiction of her husband as a lout rather than a lad. Worst of all, however, was the realisation that her husband was "leading a double life". His claim that she knew nothing of his double dealings appears to be true. It was only when she read the book that she learnt the full story. When" wheeled out to plead for his extradition for trial in England, she spoke from ignorance.
And does she know everything now? What's in the book. She hasn't read it. Why not? She listens under sufferance. Anyway, I've been told by other people that it's not very good at all. Stephen Fay didn't have access to anything. Not Nick. All he had access to was the newspapers and a couple of reports that he could buy, and I believe he has really slated Nick.
I don't think reading Stephen Fay's book would do me any good. And I don't want to read any more about Barings. I've had Barings up to here. I'm only doing this for publicity for the book. I just want to get it over with and start afresh.
At least it's now clear that there was no conspiracy, no siphoning off of funds to a secret account. The whole sorry business was just a cackhanded attempt to gamble his way out of trouble.
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