Rogue trader Leeson to return to the job market
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Rogue trader Nick Leeson, the man who single-handedly brought down Britain's biggest investment bank, is to return to the job market for the first time since his imprisonment.
Mr Leeson, 36, arguably the world's most famous fraudster, said he was looking for "mainstream" nine-to-five employment for the first time since leaving Barings. The plasterer's son from Watford cost the bank some £791m through unauthorised trading in the early Nineties. His activities were finally exposed in 1995 and, after escaping to Borneo and then Germany with his wife, he was subsequently imprisoned for forgery and cheating.
Now, after serving prison sentences in Singapore and Germany, surviving colon cancer and a messy divorce, Mr Leeson said he was looking for a job to give some "stability" to his life.
"I'm not quite sure what it will be - something in business maybe," said Mr Leeson, who married his second wife, Leona, this summer. "It could be a complete change of direction. A few people have offered me jobs, but they don't totally suit."
Mr Leeson, who has been studying for a psychology degree and appearing as a "motivational" after-dinner speakersince his release from jail, told the Financial Times he was now forced to seek employment.
"I have to work," he said. "I have no other source of income."