The financial crisis brought turmoil to the banking industry, leading to huge writedowns and swingeing layoffs. Despite this, top mergers and acquisition bankers with board-level relationships have remained in demand and, since the collapse of Lehman Brothers almost a year ago, hundreds of managing directors have been lured by rival firms, set up their own boutiques or been paid large amounts of money to stay loyal.

It is not just the Lehman diaspora that looked for new homes - big mergers such as Bank of America's takeover of Merrill Lynch led to the defections of some of Merrill's top M&A rainmakers, while increased scrutiny over compensation at firms that have accepted taxpayer bailouts have enabled stronger banks to attract talent that would otherwise have stayed put.