A Long Time In Finance

By Jonathan Ford and Neil CollinsBusiness

A Long Time In Finance episodes

March 03, 2023 The Pride of Icarus: Neil Woodford's Epic Rise and Fall
Neil Woodford was the fund manager who seemed to have it all. Hailed as the genius who "made Middle England rich", he ran one of the UK's best performing investment funds for decades. And then in a few hubristic years, after sticking his own name above the door, he raised an insane amount of cash, made some risky bets and lost the lot. Neil and Jonathan talk to David Ricketts, author of a book on Woodford, about his fall, the reasons for it, and what we've learned.

Presented by Jonathan Ford and Neil Collins.
With David Ricketts.
Produced and edited by Nick Hilton for Podot.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
27 min
February 03, 2023 Barclays: The Bank That Really Wanted to be Big
"What is all this about being big?" asked the actor Anthony Hopkins in a famous (if toe-curling) ad from 2000 for Barclays Bank. "You know, seeing the big picture, having the big idea, clinching the big deal; no one wants to clinch the little deal." For decades the British bank followed this restless urge, always trying to get bigger, to keep up with the biggest banks in the world. Neil and Jonathan talk to author and former banker Philip Augar about where it came from, how it led a stuffy old British bank to tie themselves to the one man who seemed able to deliver bigness, Bob Diamond, and how those aspirations turned to dust

Presented by Jonathan Ford and Neil Collins.
With Philip Auguar.
Produced and edited by Nick Hilton for Podot.
In partnership with Briefcase.News
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
23 min
January 27, 2023 Bernie Madoff, The Monster of Wall Street
Charles Ponzi was the first, FTX perhaps the latest, but few "rob Peter to pay Paul" schemes will ever match the sheer scale and staying power of Bernie Madoff's $64bn heist. As a new documentary airs about the "Monster of Wall St", Neil and Jonathan talk to author and fraud connoisseur Dan Davies about the world's most destructive Ponzi scheme.

Presented by Jonathan Ford and Neil Collins.
With Dan Davies.
Executive produced and edited by Nick Hilton for Podot.
Produced by Ewan Cameron.
In association with Briefcase.News
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
27 min
January 20, 2023 Long Time Short: Bernie Cornfeld's Sincere Desire to be Rich
In this final episode of our six part series, Neil tells the story of the rise and fall of Bernie Cornfeld, mutual fund peddlar extraordinaire and founder of Investors Overseas Services, whose pitch to the aspiring affluent was "Do you sincerely want to be rich?" (Spoiler alert: they didn't end up getting rich.)

Presented by Jonathan Ford and Neil Collins.
Produced and edited by Nick Hilton for Podot.
In partnership with Briefcase.News
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
12 min
January 16, 2023 Long Time Short: The Cornering of Piggly Wiggly Stores
In the fifth of our historical series, Jonathan tells the story of Clarence Saunders - grocer extraordinaire, entrepreneur and valiant battler against the soulless money-makers of Wall Street - and how he attempted the last great corner on the New York Stock Exchange.

Presented by Jonathan Ford and Neil Collins.
Produced and edited by Nick Hilton for Podot.
In association with Briefcase.News
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
17 min
January 13, 2023 Long Time Short: London's Big Bang
In the fourth of our series of historical shorts, Neil explains how a competition case before the Restrictive Practices Court in the early 1980s led to the reforms that turned the London Stock Exchange from the Hogwartian Victorian club he remembers from his own time "on the floor" in the Swinging Sixties to the polyglot digital marketplace we know and love today.

Presented by Jonathan Ford and Neil Collins.
Produced and edited by Nick Hilton for Podot.
Made in association with Briefcase.News
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
14 min
January 11, 2023 Long Time Short: The Dutch Bond That Kept On Giving
On May 15 1648, the same day Holland signed the Treaty of Munster ending its 80 year war with Spain, a Dutch canal board issued a bond of 1,000 Carolus guilders to a Mr Niclaes de Meijer of Utrecht promising to pay him 5 per interest in perpetuity. In the latest of our Long Time Shorts, Jonathan explains how that promise is still being kept 374 years later, what Mr de Meijer's bond might be worth today, and why the Dutch are so good (relatively speaking) at meeting their financial obligations. Lang leve Nederland!

Presented by Jonathan Ford and Neil Collins.
Produced and edited by Nick Hilton for Podot.
In association with Briefcase.News
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
14 min
January 09, 2023 Long Time Short: Exchange Controls
In the second of our six-part series of historical shorts, Neil takes us back to the 1970s; a benighted time when you could only take £50 per head out of the country on your foreign holidays. We explain the regime that underpinned this miserable system, how it criminalised the otherwise law-abiding middle classes, and why its much feared (by HM Treasury) abolition in 1979 was the dog that didn't bark.

Presented by Jonathan Ford and Neil Collins.
Produced and edited by Nick Hilton for Podot.
Made in partnership with Briefcase.News
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
13 min
January 06, 2023 Long Time Short: The Golden Inheritance of Max-Hervé George
Introducing a new six part series - "Long Time Shorts", in which we serve up quick hits of financial history every Friday, Monday and Wednesday for the next two weeks. In this first episode, Neil and Jonathan look at the story of French thirty-something Max-Hervé George, whose father bought him a magical insurance policy; how this gave him the gift of 20-20 hindsight, and the agony it caused the insurance company that sold it.

Presented by Jonathan Ford and Neil Collins.
Produced and edited by Nick Hilton for Podot.
In partnership with Briefcase.News
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
16 min
December 16, 2022 A Nation Deep In Debt: Part Two
“For too long in this country, we have indulged in a fight over redistribution. Now, we need to focus on growth, not just how we tax and spend," said Kawsi Kwarteng on September 23. Unfortunately for the chancellor, the bond markets didn't agree with him; yields ballooned, and a few days later he was out, followed swiftly by his boss Liz Truss. So where does that leave the UK's stressed public finances? In the second of our two part series, Neil and Jonathan talk to Britain's top bond vigilante, Jim Leaviss, and investor and writer Felix Martin about austerity, inflation, debt sustainability and where we go next.

Presented by Jonathan Ford and Neil Collins.
With Jim Leaviss and Felix Martin.
Produced and edited by Nick Hilton for Podot.
Additional editing by Ewan Cameron.
Sponsored by Briefcase.News
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
43 min

About A Long Time In Finance

From the publisher's feed

The long view of finance, markets and money as seen by two veteran City editors, Neil Collins and Jonathan Ford, presented in partnership with The Library of Mistakes.

Hosted on Acast. See