Andrew Sibbald, the senior partner of Lexicon Partners who co-founded the financial advisory boutique in 2000, told Financial News three years later that it “was absolutely the best thing any of us could have done”.

The firm has now been given a significant payout after Evercore, the independent US investment bank, agreed to pay £86m for the London-based partnership. A total of £38m is to be paid out in cash to the firm's staff with the remainder in deferred Evercore stock.