European capital markets used to be the future.

In 2007 the front cover of Goldman Sachs’s annual report featured a birds’ eye view of central London under the slogan ‘We see opportunity’. European banks were booming (although the cracks were starting to appear), Europe looked set to overtake the US as the biggest region for investment banking fees, and there was plenty of excited talk of whether the next chief executive of Goldman would be European – or even whether Goldman might relocate its headquarters to London.