ABSTRACT
We come now to the final phase of the story as we focus upon the strategic apex of the organization and what the Management Committee that met weekly on Mondays saw. The story begins in September 1993 when Peter Baring attended a meeting at the Bank of England. It was a routine event, one of the mechanisms used by the Bank in discharging its regulatory role in overseeing the safety and integrity of the banking system as a whole. Earlier the Bank of England had been concerned when Barings had been obliged to discreetly borrow $75 million to support operations after Barings Securities made an £80 million loss. By September 1993, it seemed as though the worst was over. The minutes of the meeting record that Peter Baring said, ‘“The recovery in profitability has been amazing,” leaving Barings to conclude that it was not actually very difficult to make money in the securities business’ (Treasury Committee, 15 May 1996: 22).
