Back when I used to work for a living, I often wondered why investment banks all charged 7% fees for managing IPOs. Why wasn’t there more competition among bankers? Why didn’t some sharp IPO operators at Goldman or Morgan Stanley head off to start up a boutique firm that snagged high-quality business with slightly lower fees? What happened to the free market?
Well, now we know the answer: because there’s widespread collusion on Wall Street. Felix Salmon summarizes the damning evidence here.