Given what has happened in his career, John Costas must have been tempted to follow in the footsteps of other Wall Street executives whose reputations were bruised by the credit crisis, and enjoy a long and happy retirement.

Instead, the man who rose to be deputy chief executive of UBS before striking out to launch Dillon Read Capital Management, the Swiss bank's ill-fated internal hedge fund that it closed three years to the day, on May 3 2007 in the sub-prime crisis, is building a business he hopes will bring back the heyday of the global mid-tier investment bank.