It was not just financial engineers and deal makers that were left bereft by the financial crisis. The staid world of stock lending – usually viewed as being substantially safer than houses, but earning returns beneath contempt for the average testosterone-fuelled banker – was also dealt a blow. Lenders of stock, mainly institutional investors and custodians that liked the fees they got from lending out shares, panicked at Lehman’s collapse. Big borrowers such as hedge funds fled. Short selling bans further reduced demand for borrowed stock.

As the world normalises, lenders are coming back. The trouble is borrowers are not. There are fewer hedge funds managing less money. Assets under management in long/short funds have fallen from $750bn to $420bn over the past nine months, according to Eurekahedge. Short interest levels have also fallen off significantly. In dollar terms, lending levels are roughly half that of a year ago, according to DataExplorers, the securities lending data company. In Asia, excluding Japan, the drop has been even steeper. This partly reflects the market’s drop. The value of stocks on loan as a percentage of market capitalisation has fallen by roughly one-fifth in Japan, Asia’s biggest market, but by about two-thirds in Australia and South Korea.