‘Relational Marketplaces’ and the Rise of Boutiques in London's Corporate Finance Industry

Abstract

In this paper I examine the rise of corporate finance boutiques in London's financial district from the early 2000s onwards. These small firms, typically employing no more than 25 people, specialise in a single corporate finance client sector (such as telecommunications or the media). It is argued that the growth of these boutiques is best understood with reference to the changing circumstances faced by London's established investment banks. Boutiques grew both in number and in size whilst well-known investment banking brands suffered significant decreases in profit margins, and redundancies were made across the financial services sector more widely. Two related theoretical perspectives are deployed to understand the growth of corporate finance boutiques in London within a ‘relational marketplace’. First, the concept of a marketplace is developed by spatialising recent work in new economic sociology on markets. Second, a relational perspective is used to conceptualise the coconstitutive networks that exist between corporate finance boutiques and investment banks within this marketplace.