Rubbish Check
Guardian Business · 27 September 2026
source“London’s investment bankers and lawyers make more than £1bn in takeover frenzy”
R3/ 10
Lightly altered
Rubbish Rating — 1 = base fact, 10 = pure rubbish
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In short
Rubbish Talk rates the Guardian's claim that London bankers and lawyers "made more than £1bn" a 3/10 because the £1.2bn figure is fee revenue paid to firms, not personal pay, and the headline drops accountants who are also counted in that same total.
The Verdict
Lightly altered. The core number checks out and is, if anything, understated against the article's own reporting, but the headline personifies firm-level fee revenue as if bankers and lawyers pocketed it directly, and narrows "investment bankers, lawyers and accountants" down to two professions for punchier wording.
What actually happened
UK M&A activity surged in 2026, and the fees generated for the advisers running those deals topped £1.2bn. The Guardian frames this against cost-of-living pressures and renewed union calls for a windfall tax on banks ahead of the government's October budget.
Key facts
- The value of mergers and acquisitions of UK stock market listed companies has surged 175% in 2026 to $132.9bn (£100bn), according to the London Stock Exchange, the underlying driver of the fee pool.
- Fees paid to investment bankers, lawyers and accountants working on these deals topped £1.2bn, official filings suggest, helping drive multimillion-pound pay packets, meaning the headline's "£1bn" is conservative versus the reported £1.2bn, but the money is firm revenue, not a direct personal payout, and accountants are part of the total the headline excludes by name.
- Bankers at JP Morgan have been the busiest, advising on more takeovers involving UK companies than any other bank this year, a total of 14 deals worth a combined $89.4bn (£67.6bn), according to the LSE. The leading law firm was Slaughter and May.
- UK bankers have also benefited from soaring bonuses, after the government scrapped a rule capping bonuses at two-times annual salaries in late 2023, corroborated independently: regulators confirmed the bonus cap was axed with effect from 31 October 2023, ending the rule limiting payouts to twice base salary.
- Partners at the "magic circle" firms Linklaters and Clifford Chance were paid an average of £2.5m and £2.3m respectively in the year to April, their highest ever, giving a real, named figure behind the "over £1bn" aggregate.
What to watch for
Watch whether the same £1.2bn figure gets rounded up rather than down in follow-up coverage, and whether the promised October budget bank tax rise materialises given Jamie Dimon, the billionaire boss of JP Morgan, has issued several warnings to Andy Burnham and his chancellor, John Healey, against raising taxes on banks. The excluded easyJet and other uncompleted deals mean next year's fee total could run higher still.
About this scoreThe R-Score is Rubbish Talk's editorial opinion on how far a headline's framing sits from what the underlying facts support. It is a judgement about presentation and emphasis, not an allegation that any outlet has acted dishonestly. Every figure we rely on is linked under Receipts so you can check it yourself.
