UK: LISA LEESON PROMOTES HER HUSBAND'S BOOK

AP Archive
AP Archive
9.8 هزار بار بازدید - 9 سال پیش - (26 Feb 1996) English/Nat
(26 Feb 1996) English/Nat

The wife of trader Nick Leeson says she knew nothing of her husband's multi-million dollar gamble that ended in the collapse of Britain's oldest trading house, Barings.

Lisa Leeson is on a tour of the country promoting her husband's book,  which has already earned him a 450-thousand pound advance.

But, she says, the couple will not profit from the book -- any money raised is reportedly going to pay his legal fees.

In the shadow of the bank he brought to its knees with his unchecked trading, Nick Leeson is making a more modest killing.

The book of his story is on sale here priced 16.99 pounds.

The trader, whose ill-advised gamble on the Japanese stock markets led to the collapse of Barings, has been paid a 450-thousand pound advance for the book.

And, according to this bookshop which shares a building with the merchant bank, it is selling at quite a pace.

SOUNDBITE:
Yeah, there in the same building as us so that's stirred up an incredible amount of interest. I'd expect us to sell more copies than anybody else of this book.
SUPER CAPTION: Ruth Evans, manager of Books Etc bookshop

The financial ruin of one of Britain's most prestigious merchant banks made world headlines -- Leeson was viewed either as a financial whiz-kid whose breathtaking gamble backfired or a bumbler who just kept on getting it wrong.

Leeson is now hoping that the book he wrote from his Frankfurt prison while awaiting deporation to Singapore will set the record straight.

His wife says there were quite a few surprises in the book for her, too.

SOUNDBITE:
When I read the book there was things I learnt about Nick. I mean he was leading a double life -- Nick the trader, Nick the husband and I just wish he'd have told me what was going on. I didn't have a clue what was happening and I thought that we were a happily married couple sharing everything and we were not. We were not. Like I say, Nick was leading a double life. And I've got lots to ask Nick and I suppose at the time I was quite angry and I just thought I'd like to give him a punch and ask, Why did you do it?
SUPER CAPTION: Lisa Leeson, wife of Nick Leeson

The first Lisa Leeson claims to have known about her husband's ill-advised gamble was when they both fled Singapore early last year.

From then on, she found herself at the centre of a press mob.

It was a far cry from their start in life -- when Lisa married Nick, the son of a plasterer, they were both junior clerks in Barings.

Leeson had left school at 18 -- having failed maths.

Three years ago, the couple moved to Singapore and Nick Leeson began the chain of events that would ultimately lead to the financial down-fall of Barings.

Leeson took a simple risk. He bet that the Nikkei index of top Japanese companies would rise after a year in the doldrums.

But his gamble came unstuck with the Kobe earthquake, which sent Japanese share prices tumbling.

Leeson kept buying more contracts -- even setting up bogus accounts to hid the mounting debts -- hoping for an upturn in share prices. But the market kept on heading down.

Barings was not ignorant of the scale of the deals -- only weeks before the crash, the bank transferred 800 (m) million pounds from London to cover down payments on Leeson's contracts.

In February of last year -- realising the scale of the impending crash -- Leeson and his wife fled for Malaysia.

They attempted to return to England but were intercepted in Germany, where Leeson was imprisoned awaiting extradition to Singapore.

By November, he was back in Singapore to face charges of forgery.


SOUNDBITE:





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