Jeff Peek, CIT’s chief executive, was huddled in meetings with his board and advisers in his glitzy Manhattan office on Wednesday when word came that government support would not be forthcoming.

It was the final blow for Mr Peek, a man who was passed over as head of Merrill Lynch and had spent recent years trying to turn CIT from a grubby lender to small businesses – a sort of everyman’s lender for middle America – to a more glamorous investment bank.