Like many in the 1980’s, Nick Leeson wanted to be rich and successful, but Nick Leeson was also a very strange man with an extraordinary ability to manipulate and deceive those around him. This is his story, and a story about those he deceived. His victims willingly entered into a dream he wove, lured by the prospect of vast sums of money and together they lost 830 million pounds.
“It’s very easy for me to get along with people, but I don’t necessarily have to like you or any of the people that I work with to get along with them. So I come in and do my job, do it to the best of my ability, and then at the end of the day if you’re going to ask me out for a drink, I’m not going to go out for a drink with you because I don’t like you, but I’m not going to tell you that, there’s no reason for there to be any animosity during the day. I just didn’t like the people that I worked with and so I would go and do the work, be very very friendly, everybody would probably say that they thought they were my best friend and if they have the knowledge, then I will attempt to get the knowledge through whichever way is best, and if a friendship is that method, then friendship is the method that I would use.” –Nick Leeson
Pingback: This weekend, I watched a fascinating documentary on derivatives broker Nick Leeson who, via outlandishly fraudulent trading, brought down Barings in the 1990s. Darkly funny and relevant all over again. Link to watch: « Economics Info