The last Victorian bastion besieged

Matthew Lynn says London’s last 19th-century merchant bank, Close Brothers, is under threat of takeover by one of the modern breed of aggressive City traders, Andy Stewart

Anyone approaching the headquarters of Close Brothers just off Broadgate in the heart of the City may be reminded of the words that open the Asterix books, about how one small village of indomitable Gauls held out against the invading Romans. In the last two decades, almost all the great names of what was once the Square Mile — the Flemings, the Kleinworts, the Schroders — have either been erased from the record books or reduced to nothing more than a couple of oil paintings and a brass plate inside a giant American, German or Swiss investment bank. Except, that is, for one small village of indomitable Brits: Close Brothers.

And now it too is under threat. Last month the City dealmaker Andy Stewart tabled a £1.2