Soc Gén expects good profits despite rogue trader

The group expects a £500m to £600m profit for last year following news an un-named Nick Leeson-style trader took “massive fraudulent directional positions for 2007 and 2008 beyond his limited authority”. The trader, suspended from the group along with his supervisors, held responsibility for plain vanilla futures on European equity market indices. In a statement, the group says of the trader: “Aided by his in-depth knowledge of the control procedures resulting from his former employment in the middle-office, he managed to conceal these positions through a scheme of elaborate fictitious tr...