People and Business: Carving a niche

DAVID MARSH has quit Robert Fleming in order to become a vice chairman of Hawkpoint Partners, George Magan's corporate finance boutique.

Mr Marsh was the Bonn correspondent of the Financial Times before he joined Flemings four years ago, firstly as an analyst, latterly as a mergers & acquisitions dealmaker.

While at the FT he wrote a history of Germany's central bank - The Bundesbank: The Bank That Rules Europe. His job at Hawkpoint will be to spearhead their drive into Germany.

Hawkpoint was formed last year by the combination of JO Hambro Magan and NatWest Markets Corporate Finance. Although fully owned by NatWest, the 110-strong partners share 58 per cent of Hawkpoint's profits between them.

Mr Marsh is certainly confident that such niche operators can survive in a market dominated by the bulge bracket investment banks like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. "The age of giganticism may be reaching its peak," he says.

E-mail: j.willcock@independent.co.uk