If you don't change your name every six months in investment banking, you're just not there,' says one banker at DKW. The merger between Dresdner Kleinwort Benson and Wasserstein Perella - giving way to the title Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein - is bad news for the Benson family.

The Bensons go back a long way in British merchant history. In the 14th and 15th centuries they were wool traders in the Lake District. They later became involved in the cotton trade in Liverpool in the 18th century and moved to London in the 19th century though their provision of venture capital for the burgeoning railway network.