‘I went to jail for losing £800m – but I still invest’

Nick Leeson tells Dan Moore about being a rogue trader and life in a Singapore prison

Nick Leeson, 56, is the “rogue trader” who broke Barings Bank. In 1995, he was imprisoned in a Singapore jail, serving four years and four months for fraudulently racking up losses of around £830m. This was enough to cause the 233-year-old bank, whose customers included Queen Elizabeth II, to collapse.

He is still regularly reminded of his claim to infamy, with strangers demanding to know how much money he’s lost lately. Nick, who was portrayed by Ewan McGregor in the film of his book Rogue Trader, lives in Ireland with his wife, Leona.

He travels the world delivering keynote speeches based on his experiences.

DID YOUR PARENTS TEACH YOU ANY VALUABLE MONEY LESSONS?

To be honest, I don’t think I got any. They worked hard and, living on a council estate in Watford with four young children, really struggled to earn enough to get by most of the time. I suppose that instilled a certain work ethic because money was very difficult to come by.

WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST JOB?

I had paper rounds from when I was about eight, and then from about 11 years old I used to mix for my dad, who was a plasterer. I worked on sites, but the only real attraction of that was the breakfast as I had no great passion to spend my life mixing bonding or doing hard manual labour.

HOW DID YOU SETTLE ON A CAREER IN THE CITY?

I was academically very sound and always wanted to go to university. In my head I was always destined for a desk job, not on the tools.

That held until I was about 17, when a load of people from my school were applying to Coutts Bank, which was advertising. I did too, and was taken on.

There wasn’t any snobbery, no working-class, middle-class or blue-blood divide. Everyone just wanted to make the most of their opportunity. I was very hard working, keen and accurate. The ethos was if you were all these things you’d achieve.

WHAT PROMPTED THE MOVE TO BARINGS BANK?

There were lots of opportunities to move between the banks operating in the Square Mile back then. I’d spent two years at Coutts, moved to Morgan Stanley, and then Barings to work in their Far East futures and options market, ending up in Singapore.

When you look at the story, you’re always going to get a bit of grief about how much money you lost, and people call me the worst trader of all time or whatever. Yet, I was very successful during that period and achieved an awful lot. I got to where I got because I was very good at what I did.

HOW DID IT GO WRONG?

I had a very exalted opinion of what success looked like. In my eyes, I was probably going to the top of Barings, making all the big decisions and there was nothing in the period before going to Singapore that suggested that wasn’t going to happen.

I was on a massive upward curve, hitting all my targets, achieving all my work and personal goals. But it was a poorly managed organisation that allowed me to step over the line. I wasn’t the first person to hide the loss in an illegal account at Barings. I used to see it regularly, and that breeds erroneous behaviour. I was seeing people put losses into an error account and “warehousing” it for a few hours or maybe a couple of days, then skimming a little off the next good trading to clear the error. You know you’re stepping over the line, but because you’ve seen it happen so many times it becomes easy, almost acceptable.

My motivation was to get the money back, and move on with my life and learn from a close shave. Unfortunately, it didn’t play out that way.

AT WHAT POINT DID YOU REALISE YOU WERE IN SERIOUS TROUBLE?

It was quite late in the story. I kept hanging on to the thought that the Singapore markets would turn in my favour, or the losses wouldn’t be quite so bad this week. You feed on these crumbs, and ignore all the negatives. Of course, the right thing to do is act early, but you’re in denial and convinced you can turn it around.

HOW DID YOU FEEL TO FIND YOURSELF IN A SINGAPORE JAIL?

Singapore was nothing like Midnight

Express, which was one of my favourite movies! Changi prison was new, clean, very strict and it had CCTV everywhere.

There was violence between the Triad gangs, but I was socially adept and managed. What helped was that when I arrived everyone believed I was this super-criminal who’d stolen $2bn (£1.6bn). This gave me some kudos and ultimately allowed me to survive. There were some other English lads, in for drugs, who had a very rough time, forced to join a Triad gang and so on.

WHAT DID YOU MAKE OF THE FILM ROGUE TRADER?

Sir David Frost made the movie, and he came to interview me after my arrest at the holding prison in Frankfurt, before being extradited to Singapore. He paid for an option on a movie. No one expected it to be made, until Ewan McGregor got involved.

McGregor gave a sympathetic portrayal and was quite sympathetic in interviews he conducted at the time. I never met or spoke to him but I think the compassionate nature came from Sir David. I had no direct involvement with the film. It portrayed some of the madness of that time, the lack of control, but it over-egged or simplified some of it. I’ve seen it a couple of times.

ARE YOU A SPENDER OR A SAVER? I’ve always been a spender.

WHAT’S YOUR BIGGEST INDULGENCE?

I’m pretty unmaterialistic. I’ve always had a Rolex and I like a chocolate crème bar, but my wife has bought me most of the nice things I own.

DO YOU STILL DABBLE IN THE MARKETS?

I still trade, I’m still actively involved and I have a small pension through which I invest in one or two relatively volatile stocks. I don’t let anyone else hold my pension fund, in case they lose it!

ANY RETIREMENT PLANS?

I have no designs on retiring. I want to provide for my family, my children. My parents didn’t leave me anything, and I don’t want to do the same, so I think I’ll always work a bit.

I’m coming up to 25 years as a keynote and after-dinner speaker. It wasn’t something I had an eye on, but I fell into it and I enjoy it. It’s not a self-motivational type of thing, unless you get motivated by hearing about what happens if you do what I did.

Nick Leeson is available for keynote, conference and after-dinner speaking engagements via nmplive.co.uk

‘There was violence between the Triad gangs, but I was socially adept and managed’