Investors Overseas Services

           Around 1970, a Switzerland-based asset management firm, Investors Overseas Services, had grown into one of the largest in the world in the span of just a few years, this despite a small initial target market of American soldiers deployed in Europe. Of course, the company had grown far beyond this limited market in the years

Ivar Kreuger

           What do matches and money have in common? Not much perhaps, except that one man seemed an especially powerful supplier of each. Ivar Kreuger is possibly the person whose fame has diminished the most in the last century of financial history. During the 1920s, he was one of the largest creditors, and borrowers, in the

Bank of Credit and Commerce International

           Globalization in finance has allowed the emergence of global banks, able to participate with ease in different markets around the world as barriers to the international flow of capital have been dismantled. However, global banks are not as easily regulated as those constrained to a single country, especially when closer international cooperation amongst regulatory and

Spanish Stamp Scandal

           In 2006, authorities shut down the operations of two stamp dealing firms in Spain offering investment products that turned out to be fraudulent. The value of the products they sold to customers were overstated and the returns they offered could only be paid out of the investments made by new investors. This ponzi scheme was

The Charitable Corporation Scandal

           Britain’s ‘Financial Revolution’ is usually best known for its fiscal and market effects. However, it also coincided with changing opinions towards consumer credit. By the early 18th century, borrowing and lending was accepted as a fact of life that was best tolerated rather than regulated out of existence. One attempt at improving the terms upon

Crédit Lyonnais and Executive Life

           In 1995, the French government chose to rescue a bank at a cost of $35 billion which had secretly and illegally acquired another firm earlier that decade without regulators noticing. The bank falsified financial statements and had been drifting towards riskier activities for years. Making this story even more surprising was that all this illegal

Gregor MacGregor, the Cazique of Poyais

           Two centuries ago, an entrepreneurial Scot used his imagination to mint great profits, only unlike the inventors and industrialists who characterized that era, he was a con man. Gregor MacGregor was an adventurer chasing money and fame and he separated many from their hard-earned money with tales of riches in a faraway place called Poyais.

Albania’s Pyramid Scheme Nightmare

           For many ex-socialist states, the rapid transition to a free-market economy was a calamity. In contrast to slower and more successful transformations, like that of China, the nations of Eastern Europe inaugurated their market economies with deep depressions and high inflation. Some of the blame for the disastrous ‘shock therapy’ that characterized the transformation of

Social Share Buttons and Icons powered by Ultimatelysocial
LinkedIn