Since Britain embarked on the Big Bang deregulation of its financial markets in the 1980s, UK banks have struggled unceasingly to break into the top tier of the global investment banking business.

The roll call of aspirants is long. Both Britain’s biggest clearing banks and its fading class of merchant banks – blue-blooded, traditional suppliers of capital and takeover advice to companies – have sought to muscle into the “bulge bracket” dominated by US groups such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. For all the capital hurled at the endeavour, success has proved elusive. Each apparent breakthrough has been fleeting.

SG Warburg briefly built a large bond-trading presence on Wall Street only to collapse into the arms of Swiss Bank Corporation in 1995. Barclays assembled and then dismantled an equity operation in the 1990s, unable to generate sufficient returns from UK stock trading to justify the high salaries and bonuses involved. Its exit proved traumatic. The bank briefly considered spinning off the investment bank before settling on the ejection of Martin Taylor, its then chief executive.