ONE fateful decision was all it took to turn what should have been a comfortable retirement for Mr Ling Jun Zhi and his wife into a nightmare that threatens to destroy their golden years.

That decision was to trust a financial adviser and put their $100,000 of life savings into a structured product called Lehman Minibonds that was exposed to the now bankrupt Lehman Brothers bank.

A large part of their nest egg could now be gone, wiped out after a frenzy of incomprehensible financial market convulsions in New York somehow landed on the doorstep of the retired Bukit Timah shopkeeper.

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