Berkshire Hathaway, the company owned by Warren Buffett, last month announced that it would buy back its own shares for the first time and was prepared to pay up to 10% above book value for them. For Gary Parr, vice-chairman of Lazard, speaking at the Bloomberg Dealmakers Summit in New York, this neatly illustrated the issue large corporates face in deciding how best to use the big balances they have built up since the financial crisis.

Berkshire Hathaway had $47.9bn in cash reserves as of the end of June this year. JP Morgan estimated that US corporates are hoarding their highest levels of cash since the 1950s, with non-financial companies in the S&P 500 holding an estimated $1.2 trillion.