bankruptcy of Barings Bank, collapse of Barings Bank, Britain’s oldest merchant bank, on February 27, 1995, when a single employee committed the bank to losses of roughly £830 million, from which it could not recover.
Barings had been founded in 1762 by Francis Baring and overseen by generations of his wealthy, privileged descendants. Barings lenders helped Thomas Jefferson finance the Louisiana Purchase, and it helped manage the finances of the British royal family for generations. By the later decades of the 20th century, its culture had been formed by the collision between its own long history and a form of ruthless avarice often attributed to its rival Morgan Stanley and depicted in the film Wall Street (1987).
As long as the…