Americans often receive a frosty reception in France. The thinly veiled hostility in the French media for Texan Lance Armstrong's victory in the Tour de France - for a record sixth time last weekend - is just the latest illustration of the anti-US instincts displayed of many Frenchmen.

So when Houlihan Lokey Howard & Zukin, a Los Angeles-based investment bank with a dominant position in the US debt restructuring market but little track record in Europe, launched operations in the French market a year ago it seemed destined to fall flat on its face.