To lose your top deal rainmaker (John Nelson who moved to CSFB) could be described as plain unlucky, but to lose your chairman is starting to look downright careless. Add to those a series of lesser, but still important, departures and you could make a strong case for saying that the UK arm of the house of Lazard is starting to wobble.

Let me declare my personal interests before I start. I have been an admirer of Lazard's UK operation for a long time. Here was an institution, not dissimilar in its approach to Cazenove, which believed in doing 'the right business, the right way'. The interests of the firm's clients always came first.