The huge changes in the banking industry wrought by the credit crisis have left many bankers having to adapt to new ways of doing business. A dearth of initial public offerings through 2008 and the first half of 2009 and a changed market in which new firms and individuals were emerging and others were slipping away, represented a new challenge for equity capital market bankers and their clients. For many, the first quarter of 2010 has been an education.

One head of European equity capital markets said: "In the same way 2008 got people a lot smarter about how investors viewed leverage, I think that the latter part of 2009 and the first part of 2010 has got vendors a lot smarter about how investors are likely to approach valuing IPOs."