One of the dangers in blazing a trail is that you might be the one to catch fire. The interest and discussion generated by DWF’s plans to list on the London Stock Exchange has now been matched by that around its subsequent performance.

No wonder:  the share price has dropped from 122p at the time of its listing to 56p at the time of writing (which in itself is something of a recovery from an all-time low of 49p last week). The valuation of the firm has slumped from an initial £366m to little more than half of that today. The CEO who drove the firm’s growth from a regional player of £34m fees into an international business with revenues 10 times that, has been made to stand down. And the firm recently announced that it would close or substantially reduce four of its international offices, while making 60 staff redundant.