In Retrospect, Kweku Adoboli Probably Should've Taken Down The Whole Bank And Evaded Arrest For A While
In terms of speaking gigs, do you want to hear from the guy who cost UBS a couple billion or the fugitive who brought it to its knees?
When Adoboli emerges from prison, he may be 42 years old. He will certainly have limited assets and absolutely no chance of getting another job in investment banking. So what next? Once again, we would like hold up the example of Nick Leeson. As we pointed out when Jérôme Kerviel was sentenced, Nick Leeson is now doing very well for himself indeed on the after dinner speaking circuit. Back in 1999, the BBC reported that Leeson had earned £60k for a single speech. According to his agent, Leeson now charges £7.5k plus VAT for a speaking engagement in the UK and between £10k-£20k for speaking engagements overseas, plus expenses. During the week we spoke to his agent, Leeson had been to Moscow, Dubai, and Australia – suggesting he’d made around £40k. We asked Nick’s agent if we could interview him for an article, but even this comes with a cost: Nick Leeson doesn’t even do interviews for anything less than £250. The money he makes from these endeavours appears to be his to keep: Leeson said he was no longer paying his creditors back in 2005. Admittedly, Leeson’s story is a little more dramatic than Adoboli’s. Not only was Leeson a rogue trader, but he brought down an entire bank, went on the run, split up with his wife and survived cancer. UBS remains in existence and Adoboli has simply been incarcerated in Wandsworth prison and forced to give up his £1k a week flat.
