In July, when they stepped forward to back Bradford & Bingley’s emergency rights re-issue, institutional shareholders caught the proverbial falling knife. On Monday, the government twisted it, rushing through the second nationalisation in a year to wipe out equity in a British bank.

Most investors steered clear of B&B’s capital-raising, presumably on the principle that a former building society that seemed to have incorporated Murphy’s Law into its articles of association was unlikely to be a good investment. Four big institutions did not. They answered the Financial Services Authority’s call to step into the breach left by TPG Capital’s untimely withdrawal.