Stop the elegies, the City is thriving

The minute Cazenove Group announced it was merging into a joint venture with US investment bank JPMo...

The minute Cazenove Group announced it was merging into a joint venture with US investment bank JPMorgan Chase, you could hear the elegies being written. The last of London's blue-blooded firms disappears into foreign ownership. A gentlemanly way of life vanishes. The English abandon yet another chunk of their heritage. The cliches flow smoothly from the keyboard. There is just one snag. It is all sentimental nonsense. The City is thriving. And the English are making as much money from it as they did at any point in history. For every traditional firm that disappears, there are two or mo...