ROUND ONE: FILMS

In Die Hard, Hans Gruber (played by Alan Rickman) is trying to steal bearer bonds that are in the safe of the Nakatomi Corporation in Los Angeles. Why?

•     Because one of his colleagues is an excellent forger and can forge the signature of the Nakatomi Corporation’s chief signatory, Joseph Takagi, to enable Gruber to cash the bonds

• Because a bearer bond is the property of the holder of the bond (the bearer) rather than a registered owner. (Whoever holds the bond therefore has access to the funds)

• Because the bonds are convertible into shares, which would allow Gruber and his colleagues to own millions of dollars’ worth of Nakatomi’s shares

• Because the bonds can be used like cash, in the same way that travelers’ cheques can be used in some places like cash

In Casino Royale, Le Chiffre has to win money in a card game. This is because he had lost a terrorist’s money for what reason:

• He had invested it in his own yacht company and the company had gone bust

• He had invested it in the stock market and the financial crisis occurred, turning his gains into huge losses

• He short-sold shares in an airline company because he expected the company to fall foul of a very damaging accident that he was trying to arrange, and this attempt was ultimately thwarted.

• He used it to invest in gold but the price suddenly fell due to Bond discovering that much of the world’s gold was fake.

In Wall Street (1987 version), Charlie Sheen’s Bud Fox character tells Gordon Gekko (the famous corporate investor) about the possibility that the company Blue Star Airlines may be worth investing in. This is based on information his father, an employee of Blue Star, (and his father in real life – Michael Sheen) has given him about the company but which is not yet in the public domain. Why is what Bud Fox is doing here wrong:

• This is insider trading and it is illegal

• It is unethical as his father has said he is going to leave the company and will go to work for a rival so should not be talking to his son about what is likely to happen at Blue Star

• It would be acceptable for Bud Fox to buy shares based on this information as he is related to a Blue Star employee but it would be illegal for Gordon Gekko to do so as is not related to anyone that works for Blue Star

• The information his father has passed on is unreliable and Bud Fox should not be sharing it with anyone else as it may lead them to make an investment based on gossip rather than facts. 

“It was at that moment, in that dumb restaurant, with that stupid look on his face that Mark Baum realised the whole world economy might collapse”. What film is that quote from and what is it describing?

• Margin Call, the Wall Street crash of 1987

• The Smartest Guys in the Room, the Enron scandal

• Rogue Trader, Nick Leeson scandal

• The Big Short, the financial crisis of 2008

What sort of a finance-related scheme does Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) become involved in whilst in prison in The Shawshank Redemption

• Bribery of a corrupt prison guard

• Computer based robbery of a bank

• Money laundering

• He helps the prison governor falsify the prison’s accounts

Enron was the subject of the film, The Smartest Guys in The Room. In the film, Jeffrey Skilling is employed and he advises the company to use “market-to-market” accounting. What is the key feature of this?

• It allows the company to record potential profits on certain projects immediately after contracts were signed, regardless of the actual profits that the deal would generate.

• It allows the company to transfer goods from one country to another to avoid paying tax in either country

• It insists that companies record all assets at re-sale value rather than at cost

•   It allows companies to recognise the value of potential future sales as an asset in the balance sheet

Which film popularised the well-known catch phrase: “follow the money”

• The Wolf of Wall Street

• Schindler’s List

• All The President’s Men

• The Accountant

In The Wolf of Wall Street, the trader Jordan Belfort described his business as: “a boiler room that marketed penny stocks”. What’s the best description of a boiler room:

• A place that operates twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week – somewhere that never closes

• A call centre where salespeople work using unfair, dishonest sales tactics, selling questionable investments by telephone.

• An office that is the centre of an operation – in Belfort’s case, it was the entire floor where he and the executives had their offices

• A business that only trades in stocks and shares of energy and oil companies

In Billions, a US attorney Chuck Roades goes after hedge fund manager Bobby Axelrod and accuses him of several types of financial crime. But what exactly is a hedge fund?

• An investment programme funded by shareholders that trades in diversified holdings and is professionally managed

•   A product such as a future, warrant or option whose value derives from and is dependent upon the value of an underlying asset

•   The process of taking an illiquid asset or group of assets and, through financial engineering, transforming them into a security

• An offshore investment fund, typically formed as a private limited partnership, that engages in speculation using credit or borrowed capital

The Untouchables is about Elliot Ness (Kevin Costner) trying to bring down the gangster Al Capone (Robert De Niro). In what area relating to finance was Capone convicted:

• He did not pay any income tax

• He did not pay any interest on loans, something he refused to do as a matter of principle

• He was found to have massively understated his company’s profits to ensure his tax payment was low

• He would not pay any duty on the alcohol he imported from companies in Canada