Betaville

The banker, the dealmaker and the lunch at Moro...

Here is a funny tale that Betaville picked up over a sumptious lunch at Moro, a restaurant in London that is still making great North African / Spanish fusion dishes.

Betaville will keep the individuals anonymous as sources / reputations need to be protected but it goes something like this:

James Smythe starts a new job at the London office of Blackwood LLP, one of America's largest buy-outs houses, and receives a call from Bob McGreedy at Morgan Sachs claiming to be one of Wall Street finest rainmakers.

The Morgan Sachs banker says: "Hey, I'm reaching out to see whether you might want to buy Rubbex as I know Patrick LeMaison, the chief executive, really well and he would be interested in doing a deal with your firm because he doesn't want to run a public company."

James from Blackwood responds: "Sure, it sounds interesting. Why don't you set up a meeting?."

When Bob from Morgan Sachs arrives to the meeing Patrick from Rubbex walks straight up to him with his hand stretched out and says: "James, so nice to meet you?".

So, James from Blackwood - who had arrived ten minutes earlier and was sitting quietly in the corner - pipes up: "Er, actually I'm James, that's Bob from Morgan Sachs, who I was told you knew 'well'."

Believe it or not this deal actually happened and the Morgan Sachs banker got his multi-million pound fee.....