Shifts that started with the financial crash galvanised in the decade that followed. Predictions of the rise of US firms were hastened by the reputational demise of banking clients and the acceleration of the private equity market. ‘Clients that were niche pre-financial crisis – the likes of Blackstone, KKR and Carlyle – became the successors of Wall Street. The shift from public capital to private capital helped the US firms. They tracked that change and broke open the market,’ recalls Sebastian Prichard Jones, senior partner of Macfarlanes.
This shook the Magic Circle pedestal. ‘The original Magic Circle no longer had the grip on the market. Instead, the market became broader, more open and no longer concentrated on the FTSE and the investment banks, making it a more interesting and diverse market for firms like ours,’ adds Prichard Jones.
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