WALL STREET PLUGS INTO LONDON
The US investment banks have remained remarkably cool throughout
the City revolution. While clearing banks, merchant banks and foreign
banks scrambled to buy up brokers and jobbers, the elite of Wall Street
held back from the fray. Only Shearson Lehman Brothers bought into a
major firm, the broker L. Messel. And when, in March 1986, foreign
institutions were permitted for the first time to join the stock
exchange, only Merrill Lynch, alongside Nomura, came forward.
The investment banks which dominate the New York Stock Exchange
find London's Big Bang a less epoch-making event than their
European rivals. "We're an intenational firm, with
international objectives, who can't join all the domestic exchanges
immediately," said Peter Ogden, a partner of Morgan Stanley.
"Tokyo was our first priority and we have joined that. Give our
interest in European equities, we've an obvious interest in
participating in European exchanges -- but that...
