THE Singapore International Monetary Exchange has returned millions of dollars to those assigned to clean up the financial mess left by the collapse of Barings investment bank.
'It was one of the little known secrets that over US$60 million [HK$463.8 million] was returned to the administrators,' Simex Senior vice-president Leonard Schuman told an international petroleum conference in Singapore.
The move comes just a week after Britain's Serious Fraud Office announced it would not seek to extradite former Barings trader Nick Leeson.
The decision not to extradite Leeson followed 51/2 days of meetings between fraud office investigators and Leeson in the Frankfurt prison where he is being held.
Executives of Barings investment bank in London were yesterday attempting to verify reports that the US$60 million had been returned to administrators in Singapore. Barings sources indicated they were aware of the report but were still in the process of making their own inquiries.
Ruud Polet, spokesman of Internationale Nederlanden Groep, the Dutch bank-insurer that now owns Barings, said he knew nothing about the report and that without official confirmation from Simex or the Singapore administrators it was too early to comment.
Barings went bust in February after Singapore-based trader Nick Leeson piled up GBP860 million (HK$10 billion) in losses on Asian futures markets, wiping out the venerable bank's cash reserves.
