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An unusually fine vintage of credit analysts emerged from NatWest’s credit rating unit, established in the early 1990s. David Watts investigates how a single department managed to spawn so many successful and influential members of today’s fixed-income industry

In the early 1990s, UK banks were hit by a series of high-profile corporate failures. Household names such as media group Maxwell Communications, fashion house Polly Peck, home furnishings firm Colouroll and the Bank of Credit and Commerce International all went under. The bankruptcies hit NatWest bank as much as any other: in 1991 it set aside almost £1.9 billion in provisions for bad and doubtful debts on revenues of barely more than £2 billion.

However the way in which NatWest responded to