It has been characterised as the pointy-heads versus the red braces: a contest between the five global accountancy firms that are steadily carving out new and competitive businesses in corporate finance, and the investment bankers, who have traditionally viewed such business as their preserve. It is a bid by pointy-heads, offering independent advice, clever financial structuring and a range of support services, to win market share from bankers that they view as overly focussed on selling financial products. Like all such characterisations, this illuminates only part of the picture.
To begin with, the accountancy firms have been recruiting a lot of investment bankers. That has contributed much to the success of their corporate finance divisions. The old distinction between the dull bean counters who stayed in the background and the colourful, hot-shot investment banker is fast disappearing.
