TOSHIHIDE IGUCHI IT was the most extraordinary resignation letter. Toshihide Iguchi did not bother with a few terse words or a couple of sentences of remorse. He penned a 30-page magnus opus containing details of an expensive yet ill-conceived financial fraud.
By the time the contents of his letter had been assessed, Daiwa, the Japanese bank, was US$1.1 billion (about HK$8.5 billion) the poorer.
Loser of the week hardly does him justice. As only the second man in banking history shown to have blown a billion bucks, it goes much deeper than that.
About 11 years ago, this diminutive 44-year-old Japanese banker tried to cover up a US$200,000 trading loss. He figured he could conceal it long enough to win the money back - and no one would be any wiser.
He decided to play double or quits. He doubled his bets to cover the shortfall - and lost. Then he trebled them, quadrupled them and quintupled them - and lost again. More than a decade of deception later, his losses broke through the billion dollar barrier, at which point he committed intellectual hara kiri and confessed all.
There is an assumption that extraordinary events are only ever perpetrated by extraordinary people. But in the world of finance this does not apply. The demise of Baring's trader Nick Leeson - the other man to have blown a billion - is proof of this.
Barings was a blue-blooded institution for which the word venerable was designed. Conversely, Mr Leeson was a north-London boy made good. He liked a drink. He was a bit of a lad. He dropped his trousers at parties.