Great frauds in history... John Factor’s penny-stock scams
Great frauds in history... John Factor’s penny-stock scams
John Factor sold worthless penny stocks through a boiler room operation, ramping the price via his financial newsletters. But he was never held to ac…
14 Oct 2020
Mohsin and Zuber Issa : garage tycoons who put Asda in their trolley
Mohsin and Zuber Issa : garage tycoons who put Asda in their trolley
The supermarket’s new owners are Mohsin and Zuber Issa, two brothers from Blackburn who started with a rundown petrol station 20 years ago. But their …
8 Oct 2020
Reed Hastings: Netflix founder who looms over Hollywood
Reed Hastings: Netflix founder who looms over Hollywood
Reed Hastings turned Netflix – a DVD rental service rejected by Blockbuster – into a global streaming giant that has redefined the entertainment indus…
4 Oct 2020
Great frauds in history: Alan Bond’s debt-fuelled empire
Great frauds in history: Alan Bond’s debt-fuelled empire
Alan Bond built an empire that encompassed brewing, mining, television on unsustainable amounts of debt, which led to his downfall and imprisonment.
1 Oct 2020
Trevor Milton: big dreamer wakes to a hard reality
Trevor Milton: big dreamer wakes to a hard reality
Trevor Milton wanted to be the next Elon Musk, and planned to revolutionise transport with hydrogen-powered trucks. His dreams are unravelling amid al…
27 Sep 2020
Great frauds in history: the Pigeon King’s Ponzi scheme
Great frauds in history: the Pigeon King’s Ponzi scheme
Pigeon-fancier Arlan Galbraith claimed to have created a new breed of elite racing pigeon, but his Ponzi scheme defrauded investors of over £200m.
23 Sep 2020
Terence Conran: the man who banished the spam fritter
Terence Conran: the man who banished the spam fritter
Terence Conran, who has died aged 88, introduced a country of grey houses and colourless mackintoshes to the dolce vita. He instigated a revolution in…
22 Sep 2020
Great frauds in history: Martin Grass’s debt binge
Great frauds in history: Martin Grass’s debt binge
AS CEO of pharmacy chain Rite Aid. Martin Grass borrowed heavily to fund a string of acquisitions, then cooked the books to manage the debt, inflating…
16 Sep 2020
Daniel Loeb: fiery activist goes on a buying spree
Daniel Loeb: fiery activist goes on a buying spree
Daniel Loeb is known as a sharp-tongued investor who buys stakes in companies and then shakes them up. But the pandemic caught him flat-footed and he …
14 Sep 2020
Great frauds in history: how Joyti De-Laurey became “the Picasso of con artists”
Great frauds in history: how Joyti De-Laurey became “the Picasso of con artists”
Joyti De-Laurey forged the signatures of her bosses at Goldman Sachs and started writing cheques to herself. Over many years, she netted £4.3m.
10 Sep 2020
Forrest Li : “Singapore’s Steve Jobs” shoots for the stars
Forrest Li : “Singapore’s Steve Jobs” shoots for the stars
Forrest Li was there when Apple founder Steve Jobs delivered his famous Stanford graduation speech. The experience inspired him to aim for big things …
7 Sep 2020
Great frauds in history: the Butcher brothers' corrupt banking empire
Great frauds in history: the Butcher brothers' corrupt banking empire
Jacob and CH Butcher plundered their $3bn banking empire, leaving investors short of almost $400m.
2 Sep 2020
The downfall of Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s philosopher king
The downfall of Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s philosopher king
Steve Bannon, the American president’s combustible former chief strategist, has gone down in flames, accused of milking a political fund for personal …
31 Aug 2020
Great frauds in history: crypto-queen Ruja Ignatova and her “bitcoin killer”
Great frauds in history: crypto-queen Ruja Ignatova and her “bitcoin killer”
Ruja Ignatova convinced punters to put up to $12bn into her worthless "OneCoin" cryptocurrency – then disappeared with the loot.
27 Aug 2020
Sumner Redstone: the media mogul who cheated death
Sumner Redstone: the media mogul who cheated death
Sumner Redstone, a legendary dealmaker and eccentric star of the film industry, said that he was never going to die. It’s one of the few things he was…
23 Aug 2020
Great frauds in history: the Fauntleroy embezzlement
Great frauds in history: the Fauntleroy embezzlement
Henry Fauntleroy's embezzlement Berners Street Bank cost his clients their fortunes and Fauntleroy his life.
18 Aug 2020
Bernard Looney: BP’s woke warrior detoxifies oil
Bernard Looney: BP’s woke warrior detoxifies oil
Bernard Looney wants to turn the oil giant he heads into an environmentally friendly force for good. He’s not the first to try, but there’s good reaso…
17 Aug 2020
Great frauds in history: Alexander Fordyce and shorting the East India Company
Great frauds in history: Alexander Fordyce and shorting the East India Company
Alexander Fordyce's disastrous shorting of the East India Company led to him bankrupting the private bank in which he was a partner.
12 Aug 2020
Sharon White: the economist shaking up John Lewis
Sharon White: the economist shaking up John Lewis
Dame Sharon White had no experience of retail when she took the top job at the nation’s favourite department store. Can she turn around an ailing indu…
10 Aug 2020
Great frauds in history: Billy McFarland – the man behind the Fyre Festival
Great frauds in history: Billy McFarland – the man behind the Fyre Festival
Around 5,000 people paid Billy McFarland up to $100,000 each to attend the lavish Fyre Festival on a Caribbean island. They arrived to find accommodat…
5 Aug 2020
Stuart Wheeler : the granddaddy of spread-betting
Stuart Wheeler : the granddaddy of spread-betting
A lifelong obsession with gambling helped make Stuart Wheeler his fortune. By using that to back the Brexit campaign, he changed the face of British p…
2 Aug 2020
Great frauds in history: Joe Nacchio’s insider trading
Great frauds in history: Joe Nacchio’s insider trading
Joe Nacchio, CEO of telecoms firm Qwest, was convicted of 19 counts of insider trading in 2007 and served four years in prison.
30 Jul 2020
Philip Day: the retail knight falls off his horse
Philip Day: the retail knight falls off his horse
Retail baron Philip Day, once seen as the saviour of the British high street, is under fire for holding to a monastic silence as his suppliers struggl…
26 Jul 2020
Tony Pidgley: the Master Builder leaves the stage
Tony Pidgley: the Master Builder leaves the stage
Berkeley’s Tony Pidgley, who has died aged 72, was a genius who transformed the housebuilding industry, says Max King
24 Jul 2020