‘The days when a chief financial officer could go and have a long lunch on Friday with the bank manager to extend credit lines are gone’

It used to be so simple. When European companies needed to raise money, there was one obvious place to turn: their favoured banks. For a relatively low-cost, businesses could take their pick from a list of bankers all clamouring to extend loans. It was a clubby, somewhat dull, business that took place out of the public eye.