Niall Ferguson on financier Siegmund Warburg

Available for over a year

Siegmund Warburg laid the foundations of the prosperity which has sustained the post-war City of London, and was one of the architects of European Integration. Niall Ferguson, in his new book High Financier tells Laurie Taylor how this extraordinarily dominant figure had meticulous business methods and an uncompromisingly strict ethical code. How much relevance does his example have for today? Could the traders and speculators who inhabit today's financial world learn from the elite of the past? Laurie discusses the lessons we can draw from this figure and the role played by today's financial elite with the historian Niall Ferguson and financial sociologist Karel Williams. Producer: Charlie Taylor.