HERE is a startling measure of just how tough life currently is for investment bankers. Thomson Reuters regularly measures initial public offering activity around the world. In the last week to Friday there were four successful IPOs raising a total of $87.8 million. In the same period, five IPOs were pulled which between them would have raised $646.9 million...

* THIS is a crunch issue for anyone who picks up the pieces of Lehman Brothers. Staff own something between 30% and 40% of the equity once you tot up all their share options and long-term bonuses. A full-blown takeover would trigger all those options. How on earth is a buyer who might have to pay as much as $4 a share explain to those 20,000-odd employee share owners that they just aren't going to get anything like the $77 a share their holdings were worth last year?

Gordon is still listening...

WHO says Gordon Brown doesn't listen to his critics? Following Channel 4's series, Kevin McCloud's Big Town Project, about trying to regenerate Castleford, in Yorkshire, City Spy hears that the Office of the Prime Minister has invited the presenter in to discuss his observations. The four-part C4 series, which ended earlier this month, showed how slowly planning systems work, and the cack-handed role of development agencies — one project they helped fund, a new public space, was cold-shouldered by the residents, and left to get all weedy. Still, Gordon knows all about getting the cold shoulder.

Crisis is over? Er, no, it's not!

WHEN even sages at the Bank of England like Charlie Bean say the City as a whole failed to understand the protracted and far-reaching effect of the credit crunch — he likened it to the start of the First World War — you know we are in trouble. But some people seem to be taking a very long time to wise up. This is John Varley, chief executive of Barclays, speaking a month ago on the first anniversary of the crunch on 8 August 2008: “The moment of greatest potential stress is now behind us.” Since then we have had the crises at America's biggest mortgage providers Fannie and Freddie and the fourth-largest investment bank on Wall Street, Lehman Brothers — to mention just two trifling sources of potential stress. So, John, the worst really is behind us?

* HAVE UK financial markets underestimated the number of major company failures that are going to happen as a result of the imminent recession? Yes, says one wise banking source at Deutsche in London, who says that the inevitable consolidation in investment banking is going to spread out across many sectors. He forecasts three years of pain. Better get used to it.

* BLEAK tidings at Olswang. The Holborn-based law firm is cancelling Christmas, with no festive bonuses set to be paid out to workers this December. An unhappy pass for Olswang, which boasts it has made the Sunday Times' 100 Best Companies to Work For every year since 2005...

Tim's delusions of grandeur

DELUSIONS of grandeur? Tim Martin, the mulleted boss of JD Wetherspoon is a bit sniffy about the claims his budget beer and food pubs chain is the beneficiary of the “Aldi effect” of consumers trading down to the likes of cheap supermarkets during the downturn. “I think it is more a case of the Harrods effect' because customers realise we are the best,” says Martin.
“If everything was about price the British Legion would be the epicentre of success,” Martin adds.

* INTERESTING timing: just days after it emerged that Russian investigators had raided the Moscow offices of Rupert Murdoch's News Outdoor Group, the international outdoor advertising operation, comes news that French company JCDecaux is in talks to buy the company. The negotiations were under way before the Moscow raid but it may just bolster Murdoch's desire to sell. His News Corp subsidiary has offices in some exciting emerging markets: Russia, Malaysia and Thailand, to name but three. Alas, these countries are not the easiest to do business in...

Woof of royal approval for Google

NEWS that The Queen is to visit the Victoria HQ of Google, a stone's throw from Buckingham Palace, has caused great excitement — as it is taken as evidence that Her Majesty is a convert to the digital age. There may be a second reason why the Queen is keen to visit Google.
The internet giant is one of the few firms that allows dogs into the workplace. City Spy's mole says that often there are two or three dogs in the office every day.
Google's London boss, Nikesh Arora, should tell Her Majesty to bring her corgis.

* THE gossipmongers of the property world will not let go of this one. The word is that the Barclay brothers have turned down a £650 million bid for The Ritz hotel from an Arab consortium. One sticking point is thought to be the Ritz Club casino. The brothers would like it to be included in the sale.

* THE state of the property market, according to one London agent: “It's like being blindfolded in a lift, knowing you're falling, but not knowing how far is left to go.”

* SUMMER is over and the super-wealthy Saudi families and their entourages have departed town. At one Old Park Lane-based Saudi clan, a minion was handed the task of keeping the little black book containing the PINs of everyone's London credit cards. It turned into a 24-hour job, dealing with the Sloane Street calls in the afternoon and the transactions at China White at 3am...

* EVEN aficionados admit televised poker is only marginally more interesting than watching Olympic Yngling. That, however, may be about to change. Website pokertrillion.com, keen to get some publicity in a market which now feels so last year, has sponsored a professional player who calls herself Catgirl. The 22-year-old Latvian contortionist and former gymnast is pledging to play in the altogether, donning only body paint.