Back in business with a bonus and a song

FROM STEVE BOGGAN

in Singapore

"Isn't it wonderful?" said the young Barings employee. "You can lose all that money and things still end up kind of the same. It's amazing."

And, apart from the absence of another young employee called Nick Leeson, things were still the same. The 100 men and women who comprise Barings Merchant Bank and Securities were back in business, even if 20 of their colleagues from the futures department were soon to be given their ominous "paid holiday".

They turned up for work yesterday having been told by their new masters, Internationale Nederlanden Bank (ING), that their jobs were safe, their companies were up and running, and, most important of all, their bonuses for 1994 would be paid. Amazing indeed.

In smart trousers and crisp shirts, they filed out of the hot Singaporean sun and into the air-conditioned cool of the spectacular Ocean Towers building, past a sculpture of wheeling birds entitled Soaring Aspirations, and into the black marble and polished wood elevators.

Baring Futures staff on the 14th floor, the 20 who worked with Nick Leeson, were the only ones to have been told there would be no bonuses, and they were the least willing to express delight at their new-found good fortune. They were even less happy several hours later when they learned of their enforced holiday.

"No," replied one trader incongruously, when asked how he felt. It was the kind of communication failure that can so easily lead to an £840m loss.

Up on the 24th floor at Baring Securities, where jobs and bonuses have been guaranteed, the mood was brighter.

"We're all absolutely delighted," said Tom Heston, head of sales. "The uncertainty has been very difficult."

A young Singaporean woman carrying her breakfast said: "There's a spring in everyone's step this morning. It's good news that things are back to normal but I never thought I would lose my job. I always thought it would turn out all right in the end."

Another Securities man in his early thirties strode in as if he could not believe his luck. "Now we can see the light of day," he said. "There really are no conditions on this other than that we have to be good boys."

But then, some Barings employees have always found it easier than others to be good boys. In the now-famous Harry's, the Boat Quay bar where Nick Leeson seems to have performed most of his drinking and trouser- dropping feats, Barings dealers are known for occasional yobbish behaviour.

Last Friday night, a small group demonstrated the extent to which they had absorbed the culture of the Far East by singing, to the tune of Sailing, "We are Millwall / We are Millwall / No one likes us / We don't care..."

Later on, a drunken soul could be heard singing the same song with the word "Barings" substituted for Millwall.