...Barings Bank and Nick Leeson Introduction I would like to present the case of Barings Bank, one of the most famous histories in the world when one man led to the bankruptcy the oldest British bank. Barings collapsed on February 26, 1995, due to the activities of one trader, Nick Leeson, who lost almost $1.4 billion. The loss was caused by a large exposure to the Japanese stock market, which was achieved through the futures market. Leeson, the chief trader for Barings Futures in Singapore, had been accumulating positions in stock index futures on the Nikkei 225, a portfolio of Japanese stocks. As the market fell more than 15 percent in the first two months of 1995, Barings Futures suffered huge losses, which were made even higher due to the sale of options, which implied a bet on a stable market. As losses mounted, Leeson increased the size of the position, in a stubborn belief he was right. Finally, on 25 February 1995 he walked away, when he realized that bank was unable to make the cash payments required by the exchanges. Later, he sent a fax to his superiors, offering “sincere apologies for the predicament that I have left you in.” Nick Leeson had totally wiped out the venerable 233-year-old Baring Investment Bank, which proudly counted Queen Elizabeth as a client. He left behind huge liabilities totaling $1.4 billion, more than the entire capital and reserves of the British institution. This situation - and a similar scam at the New York branch of Japan's Daiwa Bank in October...
Words: 3328 - Pages: 14
...Barings |The activities of Nick Leeson on the Japanese and Singapore futures exchanges, which led to the downfall of his employer, | |Barings, are well-documented. The main points are recounted here to serve as a backdrop to the main topic of this chapter - the | |policies, procedures and systems necessary for the prudent management of derivative activities. | |Barings collapsed because it could not meet the enormous trading obligations, which Leeson established in the name of the bank. | |When it went into receivership on February 27, 1995, Barings, via Leeson, had outstanding notional futures positions on Japanese | |equities and interest rates of US$27 billion: US$7 billion on the Nikkei 225 equity contract and US$20 billion on Japanese | |government bond (JGB) and Euroyen contracts. Leeson also sold 70, 892 Nikkei put and call options with a nominal value of $6.68 | |billion. The nominal size of these positions is magnificent; their enormity is all the more astounding when compared with the | |banks reported capital of about $615 million. | |The size of the positions can also be underlined by the fact that in January and February 1995, Barings Tokyo and London | |transferred US$835 million to its Singapore office to enable the latter the meet its margin obligations on the Singapore | |International Monetary Exchange...
Words: 6854 - Pages: 28
...Topic: The biggest scams in the banking history Course: Banking Students: Nino Vepkhvadze, Gohar Trchunyan, Giorgi Menteshashvili & Giorgi Paksashvili Date: 04.06.2012 A fraud, by definition, is the act of deliberate deception of people to secure an unlawful gain. These are mainly for the purpose of defrauding money as well as prestige rather than immediate financial gain. A study by BBC has revealed that the average woman lies twice a day while a man tells three lies a day. However, the lies they tell differ from each other a lot, both in essence and the results yielded. This is why we decided that the frauds and scams of the banking industry as well as their influence on other financial institutions would be quite interesting and intriguing. Let us together investigate how far a human mind can go to earn as much money and glory as we desire. Jerome Kerviel’s case-Societe Generale on the edge In January 2008, A French court sentenced former Société Générale trader Jérôme Kerviel to three years in prison for his role in one of the world's biggest-ever trading scandals and ordered him to repay his former employer €4.9 billion—a sum it would take him 180,000 years to pay at his current salary. In convicting Mr. Kerviel of breach of trust, forgery, and unauthorized computer use, the judge also handed Mr. Kerviel a lifetime trading ban. The prison sentence handed to Mr Kerviel is for five years, of which two years were suspended. Throughout the trial, Mr. Kerviel and...
Words: 3438 - Pages: 14
...The Nikkei 225 Reconstitution The objective of this case is to understand the effects of demand on security prices, and to understand the role of price impact on trading decisions 1. As a portfolio manager for the UNIL Advisors Nikkei 225 Index fund, which has ¥100 billion of assets linked to Nikkei 225 index, what would you do when you hear the news of index reconstitution? 2. What would you do if, instead, you were at the proprietary trading desk of Goldman Sacs? Strategic Capital Management, LLC (SCM) The objective of this case is to develop an understanding of how arbitrage acts to enforce the law of one price. It also provides a venue to discuss the various real world imperfections that can prevent arbitrageurs from eliminating mispricing in the equity markets. 1. Is there an arbitrage opportunity based on market valuations of Creative Computers and Ubid as on December 9th, 1998. 2. If yes, how would you take advantage of it? 3. What are the potential risks of such a strategy? AXA MONY The objective of this case is to understand the pricing of convertible bond and how it may be utilized profitably in merger transactions (you may ignore the part of the case dealing with issues of corporate control) 1. How would you price the ORAN at issue? Is it fairly priced? How does the price of ORAN on Feb 9th, 2004, imply about the probability of deal succeeding? 2. What is the fair price of MONY stock? If this is different from the market price of $31...
Words: 325 - Pages: 2
...Case study- The Collapse of Barings Bank 1. What was Nick Leeson’s strategy to earn trading profits on derivatives? The play here was very simple – trading futures on the Nikkei 225 as the underlying. The Nikkei 225 was traded as a future on both the SIMEX and the Osaka markets. There were always known to be differences between the two markets which could be arbitraged. The idea was to exploit the differences between the 2 markets , and execute in the cheaper market on client orders. This would then allow Barings to net a profit as they execute in the cheaper market but quote the client the price in the more expensive market. The underlying idea was of course to always be long one and short the other. Leeson was long Nikkei 225 futures, short Japanese government bond futures, and short both put and call options on the Nikkei Index. He was betting that the Nikkei index would rise, but instead, it fell, causing him to lose $1.39 billion. 2. What went wrong that caused his strategy to fail? Nick Leeson’s strategy failed because the Nikkei 225 index kept falling while he continued to bet that it would rise. On the 17th of January 1995 a huge earthquake struck Kobe in Japan. The Nikkei plummeted putting Leeson’s positions under a lot of stress. The Nikkei plunged to 17950 by the end of that week and Leeson started recording big losses. Leeson’s solution was however to ask for extra funds from London to meet his margin calls and continue trading. His view was that the move down...
Words: 865 - Pages: 4
...The latest rage in technological gadgetry is the electronic reader (e-reader), a mobile electronic device designed primarily for the purpose of reading electronic (digital) books and periodicals. While this certainly sounds like a device that could only have been thought up in the twenty-first century, the original idea is credited to an “early-twentieth-century writer and impresario named” Robert (B0b) Carlton Brown according to The New York Times (Schuessler, 2010). Though there are many credits to Bob Brown’s name, he is most known for a manifesto written in the 1930’s in which he blasts the written word for not keeping up with the age (Schuessler, 2010). Brown writes: To continue reading at today’s speed, I must have a machine…A simple reading machine which I can carry or move around, attach to any old electric light plug and read hundred-thousand-word novels in 10 minutes if I want to, and I want to. (Schuessler, 2010, para. 6). Although Brown would not live to see his idea to fruition, today’s e-reader certainly fits the description of his “simple reading machine”. How It Works While there are many brand names of e-readers, the majority of them fall into two categories: wireless or not wireless. E-readers that are not wireless require the user to purchase their digital print media through their computer first, then connecting the e-reader to the computer to transfer the files. The wireless e-readers offer a much simpler system of turning the reader on, searching for...
Words: 856 - Pages: 4
...The V-Chip Nicholas Vess XCOM/225 8 November 2013 Charles Webster The V-Chip Most television programs are now assigned a rating according to the system established by the television industry and, based on these ratings, the V-Chip can block content deemed not suitable by the owner. This is very effective when trying to block unsuitable programing from children. Since the device blocks anything rated inappropriate, children will not see the offensive material. Parents can now be certain that even when their children are watching television in another room, the content will still be suitable. Live shows may be a little more difficult to censor in this manner, however most live show get coded with a rating as well, based on the nature of the event. Video games, music and movies are harder to censor. As with anything else, the discretion of the parents has to come first. The parents are the ones who have to educate their children on what is and is not suitable to watch, play or listen to. I believe that the V-Chip has become a scapegoat for some parents, making them think it is no longer their responsibility to shield their kids for offensive programming. People are still going to complain, but television stations have done what they have needed to. I feel that any concerns about programming should be cordially denied. If you are not a fan of the program being shown, there are literally hundreds of other television stations now. ...
Words: 278 - Pages: 2
