At the time of the collapse, Baring Brothers & Co., Ltd (BB&Co) was the longest established merchant banking business in the City of London. Since the foundation of the business as a partnership in 1762 it had been privately controlled and had remained independent. BB&CO was founded in 1890 to carry on the business of the bank in succession to the original partnership. In November 1985 Barings plc acquired the share capital of BB&CO and became the parent company of the Barings Group.
In addition to BB&CO, the other two principal operating companies of Barings plc were Barings Asset Management Limited (BAM), which provided a wide range of fund and asset management services, and Baring Securities Limited (BSL), itself a subsidiary of BB&CO, which generally operated through subsidiaries as a broker dealer in the Asia Pacific region, Japan, Latin America, London and New York.
Barings Futures Singapore (BFS), was an indirect subsidiary of BSL. BFS was originally formed to allow Barings to trade on the Singapore International Monetary Exchange. At the time of collapse BFS employed 23 staff. BSL's other significant Singaporean subsidiary was Baring Securities (Singapore) Pte Limited (B S S) which employed some 115 staff. B S S's principal activity was securities trading.
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