Time to start putting clients first again

On the face of it, I picked a bad week to volunteer to write about the rebirth of gentlemanly capitalism. My thesis was that the credit crunch would lead to a profound shift in the way the City goes about its business, heralding a return — if not to bowler hats and brollies, liquid lunches and civilised working hours — then at least to an environment where longstanding relationships once again took precedence over the quick buck. After two decades in which the City appeared to have adopted Caveat Emptor as its new motto, I reckoned this financial crisis would bring about the restoration of its old one, Dictum Meum Pactum: ‘My word is my bond.’

But last week, bowler hats did make a comeback in a way that no one had expected. Bradford & Bingley, famous for adopting this symbol of old-world City respectability in its advertising, was forced to renegotiate a £300 million rights issue that had been fully underwritten by two top banks.