Few would envy Martin Taylor having to choose an adviser to sell BZW's equities and corporate finance divisions. After a year of reassurances that all of BZW was safe at Barclays, there would be enough recriminations to deal with from reversing his position. Having to appoint a rival to oversee the sale would just add insult to injury.
But to the bankers in the divisions to be sold, the appointment of Goldman Sachs was taken as one step short of outright treason (which it would have been had Taylor instead hired UK rival NatWest Markets). Whenever rumours had surfaced that BZW was to be sold, Goldman Sachs was always mentioned as the adviser, and BZW employees were quick to scoff at how absurd that choice would be.
In the UK markets at least, if not also in some European and Asian countries, the two houses' equities operations were fierce competitors. The last thing BZW's staff wanted was to have to allow such a rival to come in and pore over their business. "We couldn't believe it when we were told who was to oversee the sale," says one equities banker at BZW.