Description:

In 1995 Bank of Scotland celebrated 300 years as Britain's oldest commercial bank. Voted 'most admired bank', respected by competitors, applauded by investors and trusted by customers, it looked forward to the next three hundred. Less than 15 years later it was bust, reviled as part of the spectacular collapse of HBOS, the conglomerate it had joined. One of the high-profile victims of the credit crunch, its spectacular fall caused seismic shock waves throughout the financial world. What went wrong? Ray Perman, who has followed the Bank since the 1970s when he was a Financial Times journalist, uncovered the story from documents and dozens of interviews with people at the top in Bank of Scotland and HBOS - from being the bank of choice for the highrolling Monte Carlo mega-rich to losing GBP10 billion. It is a cautionary tale for our times. In the complex world of modern global finance, the brilliant men who ran the company ignored the simple banking rules that their predecessors learned the hard way three centuries before.

Review

'We are indebted to Ray Perman for giving us a powerful lesson on what happens when you usurp the wisdom of a banking culture acquired over centuries for the pursuit of market share and profit at all and any cost' - The Scotsman '...as a document of the long and short-term causes of one of British banking's lowest moments, Perman's book more than delivers. Its balanced treatment of the major players involved should be required reading for anyone wondering where to position the likes of Hornby in the credit crunch Hall of Shame,' Breaking Views 'an engaging account of HBOS's downfall' - Financial Times '[An] admirably lucid account' - Independent on Sunday

About the Author

Ray Perman is a former journalist with more than 30 years of experience. He is the cofounder of the business magazine Insider Publications, the former chief executive of Scottish Financial Enterprise, and the chairman of the James Hutton Institute—the first institute of its type in Europe dedicated to making new contributions to the understanding of key global issues such as food, energy, and environmental security. He is the author of The Man Who Gave Away His Island: A Life of John Lorne Campbell of Canna. Alistair Darling is a Scottish Labour Party politician who has been a member of Parliament since 1987. He served as the chancellor of the exchequer from 2007 to 2010.