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Going For Broke: Nick Leeson And The Collapse Of Barings Bank
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March 25, 2007
The subtitle of this book is "Nick Leeson and the Fall of Barings Bank." She delivers. She details the exact steps a 28 year old went through to bring Barings down. She also worked for Barings, and was privy to lots of inside communication. By being able to converse with insiders, she peels back the "complex financial transactions" to reveal the ugly truth.
Nick Leeson got away with it because he was able to hold the keys to the front of the shop, while also holding the keys to the back of the shop. He wasn't brilliant. He, frankly, didn't even appear all that clever: Rather than coming up with an ingenious scam, he simply lied.
Further- and this blew me away- Barings knew. Senior management had been apprised of the problem, and they let it ride. Rather than deal with the situation, they ignored the counsel of their auditors and let him persist in being in charge of both the foxes and the henhouse.
I read a review of this book on Amazon. The reviewer said the author let Leeson off too easily. I disagree. She clearly states what he did wrong. His efforts were clearly intentional- and he made every effort to conceal them. However, management did themselves no favor. Both in having a convoluted structure and not clearly defining boundaries, they left themselves wide open for this sort of chicanery.
I got this book for a dollar at the local dollar store. Really good deal. Well worth it. A lot of my reading the last few years has been around the marketplace. This one was worth adding to my collection.
Nick Leeson got away with it because he was able to hold the keys to the front of the shop, while also holding the keys to the back of the shop. He wasn't brilliant. He, frankly, didn't even appear all that clever: Rather than coming up with an ingenious scam, he simply lied.
Further- and this blew me away- Barings knew. Senior management had been apprised of the problem, and they let it ride. Rather than deal with the situation, they ignored the counsel of their auditors and let him persist in being in charge of both the foxes and the henhouse.
I read a review of this book on Amazon. The reviewer said the author let Leeson off too easily. I disagree. She clearly states what he did wrong. His efforts were clearly intentional- and he made every effort to conceal them. However, management did themselves no favor. Both in having a convoluted structure and not clearly defining boundaries, they left themselves wide open for this sort of chicanery.
I got this book for a dollar at the local dollar store. Really good deal. Well worth it. A lot of my reading the last few years has been around the marketplace. This one was worth adding to my collection.
Displaying 1 of 1 review