Dresdner Bank and Wasserstein Perella are staying tight-lipped about the speculation that Dresdner is to boost its US M&A advisory presence by buying the US boutique investment bank, although reports suggest that a deal might not be far off.

Wasserstein Perella was ranked fifth in Thomson Financial Securities Data's advisory league tables for US announced mergers and acquisitions deals for the first half of 2000, behind Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, Merrill Lynch and Salomon Smith Barney.