Back when mergers and acquisitions were booming and leveraged finance was bringing in huge revenues for the bulge-bracket banks, senior bankers at Close Brothers could have been forgiven for questioning their decision to dedicate their careers to the comparatively unsexy field of restructuring.

Today, as demand for restructuring expertise outstrips supply, that decision looks positively prophetic. But over the years, the London-based mid-market bank's star bankers have slowly departed for pastures new. In fact, it is not too much of an exaggeration to suggest that the thriving European restructuring industry is now dominated by former and current Close Brothers bankers.