'Rain Man' is found guilty

He had a knack for mathematics and the social awkwardness to match.

Until his mid-20s, Tom Hayes, the former derivatives trader from Britian who was found guilty of rigging the London interbank offered rate (Libor) on Monday, had slept under the same blanket emblazoned with superheroes he had since he was eight years old, according to his own account.

Throughout his trial, Hayes had said that to him, his job had always been a numbers game, and he wanted to do his job exceptionally well.

Now, Hayes faces another number - 14, the number of years he could spend in prison after a jury in London handed down a verdict that was the first conviction of its kind.

"I wanted every bit of money I could get because that's your performance metric, that's how you're judged," Hayes had told jurors during his trial.

No power suits

Hayes grew up in a middle-class family west of London, eventually going on to study mathematics and computer programming. He had barely graduated before big banks were lining up at his doorstep, hoping to hire him.

He eventually joined the Royal Bank of Scotland as a junior trader in 2001, specializing in derivatives tied to Libor.

Libor rates are submitted by major banks everyday to reflect the estimated cost of borrowing in different currencies over various time frames.

The then 21-year-old would go on to make a career at major banks where he tried to influence people in charge of submitting the estimates to skew the benchmark rate in his favor, the court in London ruled.

Although he eventually became known as a well-connected, convincing trader, Hayes hardly looked the part. Instead of a power suit, he was often dressed as he was on the day of his sentencing - in a plain sweater and slacks.

Eat, breath and dream Libor

Libor dominated his thoughts constantly and he even sometimes updated his Facebook page with the rates he wished for, according to media reports.

"I used to dream about Libors," Hayes told prosecutors. "They were my bread and butter, you know. That was the thing. They were the instrument that underlined everything that I traded."

Colleagues described him as shy and socially awkward. Hayes would later be diagnosed by the start of his trial with mild Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism characterized by difficulty with social interactions and obsessive, repetitive behavior.

In 2006, he started a three-year stint at UBS in Tokyo. He earned the Swiss bank $300 million (274 million euros) before eventually being hired by Citigroup with a signing bonus of 2.2 million pounds (3.1 million euros). But he only stayed at that job for 10 months before the bank’s yen Libor submitter reported being approached inappropriately by a junior colleague on Hayes’ behalf, launching an internal investigation.

A fall guy

At the time, banks were under pressure from a global investigation on rate rigging that was taking place. Hayes was dismissed in 2010, but not before he asked how much the bank would pay to make him "go quietly." Citigroup reported the incident but let him keep his bonus.

He returned to England and bought a seven-bedroom, seven-bathroom Victorian rectory, where he lived with his wife and son. In December 2012, he listened as US Attorney General Eric Holder announced on television that he had been criminally charged over Libor.

He initially cooperated with the investigation for around five months, where he gave around 82 hours of voluntary interviews to Britain’s Serious Fraud Office. But he abruptly changed tack, pleading not guilty before the British jury.

Hayes said he was motivated by his anger at being set up as the fall guy and "thrown under the bus" by his former employers, who condoned the methods he had made transparent. He said his managers at Citigroup even "coached" him.

The world's biggest banks and brokerages have so far had to pay $9 billion in total, and 21 people have been charged. But Tom Hayes will always have a place in history as the first trader to ever be convicted in a Libor rigging case.

"I was the guy everyone was going to blame," Hayes said.

jd/cjc (Reuters, AFP)