Robin Saunders is back. The corporate financier who exited her last employer, WestLB, in 2003 after some unfortunate losses has given an exclusive interview in the August issue of Vogue, out next week.

These things do not happen by coincidence: we can assume she is keen to raise her profile.

Now running her own private equity firm, Clearbrook Capital, she says she has raised several billion pounds from investors but so far held off.

“Now, like the first swallow of summer, she is preparing to re-enter the market. She also believes the worst of the shake-out is over, and by the winter it will be safe to return,” the article says.

Saunders reflects movingly on her period in the wilderness. “People you thought were your friends scatter to the winds. I remember going to a cocktail party during that time and as I walked into the room you could hear a pin drop: everyone looked at me as if I was a ghost.”

She has also recently had to give up zipping around London on a Vespa. Ahead of an important meeting with a banker, she fell off.

Diversity crucial for those living the life of Reilly

A fun day ahead on Monday for Mary Reilly, who is an audit partner at Deloitte. She will be at Tate Modern, having been invited to be a part of “a distinguished panel from big business” at a breakfast launch of a study on diversity. (I think that it is a fair assumption they will be in favour of it. But we will have to wait and see.)

This is organised by an offshoot of the London Development Agency, from which Reilly was, of course, fired as chairman when Boris Johnson took over from Ken Livingstone as Mayor of London.

So I'm betting that there is a good chance she will bump into a few old friends. “This event on Monday has been in her diary for quite some time, and it would have been churlish to withdraw,” says a colleague.

Gone to pot

A further note on the troubles of the game-shooting industry, hit by falling demand from corporates and higher energy costs and pheasant feed prices. Another worry, it seems, is the cost of the cartridges that the trigger-happy investment bankers blaze away.

Cartridge makers use thousands of tonnes of lead and copper each year, two commodities that have soared in price. “People will have to be a lot more accurate this year,” says my man in the butts.

David and Goliath

Most worrying comparison of the day comes from the indefatigable David Buik, commentator at BGC Partners.

The market capitalisation of General Motors, the colossus which makes the cars that keep America moving, is $5.65 billion (£2.85 billion). The market cap of Mattel, which makes those rather smaller Matchbox toys, is $6.2 billion.

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