Barings Goes Global

I recently finished reading Judith Rawnsley's book "Total Risk" about the Barings Bank collapse at the hands of Nick Leeson. While the book is good enough, although maybe a little too easy on Nick and Barings, it is interesting enough. A couple of illustrative quotes:

"... Khoo's trading operation created an unexpected dilemma because Heath's 'client is King' approach to the world was suddenly thrown into question as the proprietary trading ... began to draw complaints..."

"The only point at which both proprietary and agency broking business streams converge is on the exchange floor or dealing-room screen."

"... Peter Norris allowed Ron Baker to be charge of agency broking and proprietary trading, so the two sides of the Chinese Wall became fudged."

What strikes me about this story is that the destructive behavior which took down Barings only 15 years ago, is now being performed on an even larger scale. One could argue that it has gone global as the large money center banks are being fed inside information by Federal Treasuries. It should be no surprise when and if the result ends up being the same.