The performance of Barings was creditable in the Panic of 1837, yet there were two terrible lapses by the bank in later years worth reviewing briefly that may add clarity to the main story of this essay. The gulf between 1837 and later years seems prima facie so wide, the times so changed, and the problems so different, as to defeat comparison. However, the characteristics of Barings’ proud conservatism revealed in the 1830s resonated in later years to monumental effect. Argentina was the first area of difficulty. Singapore was the second. The story of each is first sketched, results presented, and comparisons drawn where possible to the 1830s.

Argentina: 1890

In the 1880s, Great Britain's hot money was going to Latin America, specifically Argentina. First for the wool trade on the Pampas, then for various infrastructure projects such as railroads and electricity, British investment was worth about £25 million by 1880. In 1885 it stood at £45 million; by 1890 £150 million. After some years away, Barings returned to the region in the late 1850s, and by the 1880s was keenly interested in Argentina. It maintained a correspondent relationship with a well-established Buenos Aires trading House, S. B. Hale & Company.

The director of Hale & Company was an American named C. H. Sanford who, in 1888, solicited Barings’ senior partner, Lord Revelstoke (Edward Baring) to share a concession granted to Hale from the President of Argentina for harbours, docks, railways and other public works in the municipality of Buenos Aires. Hale & Company paid $21 million for the concession, for which it received 10 million shares and debentures in the newly-formed Buenos Aires Water Supply & Drainage Company for sale to the public.