Listen to current private banking scuttlebutt, and it would appear that Brown Shipley has suffered an unsettling and steady haemorrhage of talent.

I make a few phone calls to informed chums, and the actual position appears rather different.

True, the venerable private bank has seen about 30 departures over the past 12 months, whipping up speculation about a wholesale flight of people to other banks. Why, fevered rumour suggested that most of the Manchester office had gone AWOL.

But wait; 10 of those leaving have been redundancies. Of the remaining 20 or so departees, only four have actually been client-facing ...