There have been a plenty of books written on the banking crisis on both sides of the Atlantic, including books by both Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling. But none with this degree of inside information on the inner workings of a bank during a time of great crisis. Sir Victor Blank, the former chairman of Lloyds TSB, has never spoken publicly about his bank's doomed takeover of high-street rival HBOS - until now.
The son of a Jewish tailor in Manchester, Blank rose to the highest echelons of the banking world to become chairman of staid and solid Lloyds TSB in 2006, then Britain's fifth largest bank. At the time, it was thought Lloyds' takeover would bring the aggressively-run HBOS back from the brink while pleasing the prime minister and raising Blank's reputation in the City. What could possibly go wrong?
Blank Cheque tells the inside story of what really happened in the aftermath of the worst single day in banking history, a day in which two of the world's banking giants, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch either filed for bankruptcy or had to be bailed out by the US government. For the first time, it brings together the story from the viewpoint of Blank and Tim Tookey, his finance director at the time, and gives a version of the events that the politicians did not want you to hear.
