Nick Leeson loses his ‘rogue’ crown

One man whose reputation has been dented by the discovery of a €4.9bn fraud at the Societe Generale bank is Nick Leeson, who has lost his crown as the world's number one rogue trader. Today Leeson's agent was doing his best to keep his client's value up, running an auction between various newspapers and broadcasters bidding for interviews with the former derivatives trader.

Leeson's fraud brought down Barings Bank in 1995. But the losses caused by Jerome Kerviel, the 31 year-old Frenchman responsible for the SocGen debacle, are a staggering four times those made by Leeson.

Leeson, who spent three and a half years in a Singaporean jail, now lives in the west of Ireland where he has remarried (his first wife left him while he was serving his sentence) and become chief executive of Galway United Football Club.

Approached by the BBC today, he said rogue trading remains a daily occurrence within the financial markets. But even he was shocked by the scale of the SocGen fraud. "I never for one moment believed it would get to this degree of magnitude, this degree of loss."

The BBC was lucky to get him. His agent, Neil Martin, said other broadcasters and newspapers wishing to hear his views on Jerome Kerviel's adventures at SocGen would have to pay. He denied Leeson was capitalising on his infamy. "It is more of a disruption fee to enable him to move his diary around," Martin told Reuters.

Martin refused to say how much he would be asking but, as an indication of his client's worth, he said Leeson currently charges £5,000 to £6,000 for after-dinner speeches.

Leeson wrote a book, Rogue Trader, about his experiences at Barings which was made into a film staring Ewan McGregor. He has since written a self-help book, Back from the Brink, Coping with Stress. He might want to send a copy to Monsieur Kerviel.