Barings Bank Investment Disaster

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Barings Bank is now a part of ING, a dutch bank. ING purchased Barings for a princely sum of £1 after the catastrophe in the 1990's which lost more than 1 billion pounds sterlings. The disaster had all the elements of a Geoffrey Archer novel, such as greed, betrayal and lies, helped along with a healthy dose of arrogance by the Barings senior management. Some of this arrogance stemmed from Barings long history.

Barings was formed 1762 in the city of London and was the longest established merchant banking business in that City. Since it began it had been privately controlled until it became a plc in 1985. The bank, in large, had a great history, and from an outsiders point of view it was a great success story. Paradoxically, this success breed complacency, particularly among Senior management who must have believed that it was their given right to make millions and millions.

Worldwide Operations

They had operations all over the world, including Japan and Singapore, which is where the financial hemariage of Barings began which ended in the bank's bankruptcy. The main culprit being Nick Leeson.

Other infamous investors include Frank Quattrone and John Rusnack

Such disasters gave rise to legislation such as Basel II and Sarbanes Oxley Sarbanes Oxley.

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