Company
DissolvedBaring Brothers
London · 1762 – 1995
The bank collapsed in 1995 after unauthorized trading in Singapore. ING bought what remained for a nominal sum.
Francis Baring set up as a merchant in London in 1762. The house became Baring Brothers, accepting bills on American and European trade and, in time, issuing loans for governments and railways. By the early nineteenth century it was the bank a foreign state went to when it wanted London's money.
The partners were few, the reputation was the capital, and the clerks were numerous enough to run a correspondence with every port that owed the house money. Barings was not a high-street bank. It was the wholesale end of credit.
A merchant bank's actual work
An acceptance meant Barings would pay a bill at maturity if the client did not, which let a trader in Baltimore sell cotton to a spinner in Liverpool. The fee was small and the judgment was everything. Alongside that, the house contracted loans: it bought an issue from a government and sold it to investors. The staff who administered a loan after the sale, paying coupons and keeping the register, were the part of the bank that looked most like a modern office.
1995
In February 1995 the bank discovered that Nick Leeson, a trader in Singapore, had lost more than the firm's capital on unauthorized futures positions. The Bank of England tried to organize a rescue over a weekend and could not. ING bought the remnants for £1. The name Barings was later used by other businesses. The house founded in 1762 ended that weekend. A firm can be two centuries old and still be one trader away from zero if the supervision is weaker than the bets.
The work it organized
- Partner
- Acceptance clerk
- Loan administrator
- Correspondent
On the timeline
Related
- The Rothschild housesActive
- The Bank of EnglandActive