Searching for reasons why London’s top firms have had, by their standards, a tough financial year, a good starting point must be the current dearth of cross-border European M&A.

It is, of course, no surprise that deal activity as a whole is well down on the boom years of 1998-2000, with announced European M&A in 2003 hitting $555bn (£307bn), against a 1999 high of $1.546trn (£855bn), according to Thomson Financial research.