People and Business: Old boys' club

GRAEME GRIFFITHS has jumped ship after a 15-year career with JP Morgan to join the corporate finance department of KPMG. This is the first time the accountancy firm has poached from the ranks of the US "bulge bracket" investment banks.

Over the past five years KPMG has become something of an old boys' club for British merchant bankers. The first were Stephen Barrett and John Riddell, who joined KPMG from Lloyd's Merchant Bank - now no more.

Then there's the department's own chairman, David Beever, who came from SG Warburg, along with his old friends Nick Fry and Tim Stone. Refugees from the now defunct BZW include David Simpson and Charles Cattaneo. Last month Marc Cramsie joined the bean counters from Singer & Friedlander.

John Griffith-Jones, the department's managing partner, says: "We are getting a far higher quality of person applying to join than even two years' ago."

And which bank did he come from? "Oh, I'm just KPMG," he says modestly.