Ramsden's secret history
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Ramsden's secret history

The sad news of former City of London trader Terry Ramsden's imprisonment set us turning back to Euromoney 13 years ago.

We published the first profile of Ramsden in November 1985 in a story on the then-booming Japanese equity warrant market. Emerging into prominence from obscure beginnings, the market was dominated by a small circle of sharp dealers, among whom Ramsden was the most active and the most colourful. When Euromoney spoke to him, Ramsden had just taken the almost unthinkable step of launching an unwelcome takeover bid for a public Japanese company, ball-bearing maker Minebea.

The profile recounted the legend that Ramsden had risen from the back office of an obscure City brokerage, Hedderwick Sterling Grumbar, had bought his first house after a big betting win on the horses and then sold it to go independent with his own company, Glen International.

Those were happy times for Ramsden, who, like many warrant traders, was making huge profits from highly geared bets on the rising Japanese stock market. Katies, one of his racehorses, won the big mile race at Royal Ascot that year.

Ramsden's troubles were all in the future.

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