It is 20 years since Big Bang. I wrote a forgettable book about the change: it didn't help that the subject was dull and the individuals involved, be they stockbrokers, jobbers or regulators, were not drawn from central casting.

There were few swashbucklers but plenty of unimaginative, well-connected order-takers, who knew their easy world was about to come to an end. Their principal objective was to take as much out of the businesses as they could before some impertinent new owner asked them what they did. At the time, I believed the Americans would sweep the board. They had the management talent. They were obsessed with making money. They were prepared to cut corners. Their technology was in a different league. It was this that provided trading and execution costs sometimes half or more below their London counterparts. But London didn't give up without a struggle. Merchant bank SG Warburg and commercial bank Barclays made a genuine attempt to build a financial empire. Both bought respectable brokers and jobbers. Their choices weren't perfect: Barclays bought a second-tier broker in De Zoete & Bevan and SG Warburg was probably railroaded into acquiring UK government broker Mullens & Co. But the Americans didn't prove to be astute buyers either. Security Pacific was woefully clumsy in its purchase of Hoare Govett and Citicorp shot itself in the foot when buying Vickers da Costa and Scrimgeour Kemp-Gee. Looking back at the early days after Big Bang, it was often a case of the blind leading the blind. SG Warburg built an impressive platform by buying Rowe & Pitman and Akroyd & Smithers, and looked the best of the UK groups. Barclays had good intentions but feeble management and it didn't help when a team of jobbers left to join Kleinwort Benson.
SG Warburg should have been a winner but by the time of Big Bang, creaks were appearing in the facade. It had helped to pioneer the early eurobond market but the Americans swamped the bank and Credit Suisse First Boston completed the rout. Warburg kept second-rate, inadequate eurobond managers who did not understand modern technology. Did its bankers lose their edge? Yes, and by the time the Americans in London were hiring, it was all over. When Goldman Sachs changed its mind about not representing clients in hostile bids, it was another nail in Warburg's coffin. The end of Warburg was at least mercifully quick but for a miserable price, which was little more than Dresdner Bank later paid for Kleinwort Benson. The first marriage attempt was made in the weeks before Christmas 1994 by Morgan Stanley. On the surface, the pair made a reasonable-looking couple. It was only when Morgan Stanley saw Warburg's execution costs for a single trade were triple its own that it ran away. When Morgan Stanley rushed for the exit, Swiss Bank Corporation, led by Marcel Ospel, didn't have to fire a shot in anger before Warburg surrendered. It was a good trade for Ospel, who wanted a good equities business. His O'Connor derivatives wizards would take over Warburg's fixed-income operations. Warburg bankers could be incentivised to produce higher fee income and the bank had an impressive client list. What is left of the Warburg empire today? Not much. Swiss Bank Corporation bought Union Bank of Switzerland, now UBS. Mullens disappeared. Rowe & Pitman and Akroyd & Smithers are remembered only by bankers older than 60. And, as for Warburg, unkind historians have labelled it as the bank that failed.