Back in September Morgan Stanley (Asia) chairman Jack Wadsworth gave a conference presentation on the future of Asian investment banking. One of his slides was provocatively headed 'Asia's competitive landscape is emerging into an oligopoly, very much like the US market'.
Below were charts and graphs showing Morgan Stanley dominating an elite tier of mainly United States investment banks.
Mr Wadsworth outlined 'the essence of a great investment bank' as having 'integrity, power, discretion'.
Listening to investment banks wax about 'values' and 'integrity' can be painful, but clients seem to like it.
In the case of Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch, an epic smooze of mainland officials was rewarded with the lucrative mandate to lead manage China Telecom's international listing. Goldman Sachs will feel particularly hard done by. It was credited with doing a solid job managing China Mobile's share placements and would have hoped to have bagged the parent. Goldman is rarely a gracious loser but the mainland authorities are savvy when it comes to dispersing their favours.
China has offered rich pickings for the dominant big two US investment banks this year. Moreover, it has thrown up none of the ugly revelations dogging them in Japan. Goldman faces charges there from opposition politicians of improper trading in the shares of the recent NTT issue, and other firms have inspectors crawling over their books.