Much like a conversation about an illegitimate child in Victorian Britain, the subject of fees was not one investment bankers tended to talk about in days of yore.
They were coy about fees, perhaps because they were concerned lest large fee numbers cause a backlash in newspapers and boardrooms.
How times have changed. Nowadays, Asia's legions of investment bankers hardly talk of anything else.
This is what FinanceAsia Magazine's new cover story Crunching fees, weeping bankers - May 15 issue relates. The compression of investment banking fees is reaching painful levels. Asian CFOs are now able to dictate their terms, and thanks to inordinate competition among banks, they are likely to get...