The Lex Newsletter: where are the City’s missing wheeler dealers?

The Lex Newsletter: where are the City’s missing wheeler dealers?

Dear reader,

For jungle dwellers, apex predators are a mixed blessing. They may swallow you whole as a bonne bouche. But if they disappear, it feels like something is missing.

This is one unremarked aspect of the City of London’s current malaise. A broad range of wheeler dealers operate in other financial centres. Wall Street has investors such as Carl Icahn and Bill Ackman. Paris is a forum for tycoons such as Bernard Arnault and Xavier Niel. Mumbai has more powerful dynasties than Ancient Egypt.

City corporate raiders Lord James Hanson, Sir Gordon White and Sir Gerry Robinson are long gone. Entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson is these days mostly active in the US.

The City of London is now curiously devoid of big-name financial operators. Simon Peckham had qualified, as chief executive of Melrose.

Lex last month noted Melrose’s demerger of Dowlais. Melrose would doubtless have sold the auto parts group for a fat return, given the chance. Now the quoted acquisitions vehicle is hanging up its deal boots to concentrate on running its aerospace business. The FT’s Helen Thomas dissected the move neatly this week.

Unlike eighties rock goddess Bonnie Tyler, I can’t say I’m holding out for a (new) hero. Wheeler dealers can destroy