BY Saturday morning, February 25, a precise estimate of Barings' losses was still proving elusive. The deeper a team led by Carol Sargent of the Bank of England's supervision division ploughed through the paperwork, the larger the hole became.
Worse news followed that afternoon as investigators in Singapore reported back that trader Nick Leeson had also left open option contracts worth at least GBP200 million (about HK$2.5 billion). The bank now owed at least GBP585 million.
Bank of England Governor Eddie George - who had been recalled to London from a skiing trip in France late on Friday night - had a private briefing at Barings and then returned to his office to co-ordinate his staff and chair an internal meeting in the afternoon.
Fleet Street got the first whiff of a story by mid-afternoon, following a tip-off by a senior Barings executive. Chairman Peter Baring and his deputy Andrew Tuckey have both denied the initial phone-call to the press.
The bank's main fear was that as soon as the story reached the Far East, the market would savage the remaining value of Barings' investments. That would increase the cost of selling the bank as a going concern.
As a couple of reporters gathered outside Bishopsgate, the bank refused to comment. It sat back to see how hard the story would be written on Sunday's front pages.
