Think of investment banking in its purest sense — the trusted adviser who has the ear of the chief executive or chairman and can use the resources of his or her company at a moment’s notice for a favoured client.
Then think of China, where dealmaking is at record levels, and try to spot the equivalent of US bankers Bruce Wassersteinor Joseph Perella. The task is not easy. Rainmakers, where they do exist, have tended to keep a lower profile — and what profile they had is already fading.
Investment banking everywhere is under pressure in the light of post-financial-crisis regulation and costs. But in China those strains are even greater.