While there is a lot of money to be made in investment banking, there is not a lot of love lost between those who work in the glass towers of the City and Canary Wharf and those who move into small, boutique offices in the greener, grander surroundings of the West End of London and start telling clients about the tricks of the trade.

That is what happened when John St John, ex-chairman of European equity capital markets at Nomura, founded STJ Advisors at the peak of the 2008 financial crisis with a collection of bankers from bulge-bracket investment banks. These included Marcus LeGrice, former head of ECM at Nomura; David Jennison, ex-head of ECM for central Europe, the Middle East & Africa at JP Morgan; and Simon North, former head of European corporate broking at Lehman Brothers.