At a Lazard directors’ offsite meeting in mid-September, William Rucker, chief executive of Lazard in London, showed his colleagues a league table from the pages of an old edition of the Financial Times. It showed the top advisers on UK mergers and acquisitions completed in 1989.

SG Warburg was first, followed by Lazard Brothers, at that time one of three Lazard businesses, and Goldman Sachs. The other firms making up the top 10 were Bankers Trust, Hambros, Shearson Lehman, Drexel Burnham Lambert, Schroder Wagg, Morgan Grenfell and Kleinwort Benson.