The Bank of China has emerged as the buyer of one of the most significant chunks of property up for grabs in the City at present. One Lothbury is almost next door to the Bank of England and was originally being developed by Barclays and Welbeck Land. It was bought by Goodbody Private Clients, the Irish stockbroker, for €170 million at the top of the market in 2007 on behalf of the Roche retailing family. The freehold still belongs to the Bank and the leasehold is 150 years.

The Bank of China is at the rather less elevated Cannon Street and will move in early next year. The move will improve its prominence in London, according to Faegre & Benson, the law firm that acted for the Chinese.

“It makes a bold statement about them wanting to do things in this country,” a spokesman said. Indeed. The national bank of the country that is becoming so financially powerful that it owns large chunks of US government debt and may end up with large chunks of the Japanese equivalent, a country where having “good face” is all, is pitching its tent close to the Bank of England. I think we get the point.

Once upon a time in the City there traded a broker

Which dead bank or broker do you most miss? The website Here Is The City is holding an online poll. It has collated a grand total of 226 contenders, including old partnerships such as Vickers da Costa, forgotten disasters such as Crocker Bank, which almost killed the Midland in the 1980s, and the likes of Madoff Investment Securities. There must be lingering affection for pre-Big Bang firms, such as Grieveson Grant, which hung its shingle just along Gresham Street from Guildhall. But does anyone still mourn Burns Fry (Canadian, I think), or Fundamental Brokers, or Pidgeon de Smit?

Next month two US lawyers will mount a legal challenge to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, the legislation passed during the previous wave of corporate scandals. This imposed such a heavy burden of regulation on US firms coming to market that it accelerated Wall Street’s relative decline. Some on this side of the Atlantic want a statue to celebrate the achievements of the two legislators whose name it bears in boosting London as a world financial centre at New York’s expense. Michael Carvin and Noel Francisco, the lawyers challenging the Act, work for Jones Day. They are representing the head of a small Nevada auditing firm who claims the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, which was created by SarbOx to oversee auditors, ruined his business. They are, by all accounts, in with a good chance at the US Supreme Court.

A touching letter from Alan Staveley appears in the Rutland & Stamford Mercury. He has read in the paper that Nick Anstee is the new Lord Mayor. He recalls both Mr Anstee and Greg Williams, the longstanding Guildhall PR man, as boarders at the local Stamford School in the 1970s.

He was their headmaster.

In the blue corner: litter louts

Caught! No ifs and no butts

The City of London is launching a campaign against people who drop cigarette butts in the street. They will be hit with a fixed penalty notice and could receive a four-figure fine if they end up in the magistrates’ court.

The Environmental Services side has been collecting a day’s worth of butts found on City pavements for the start of the campaign. This, apparently, amounts to 7,000 butts, and many of them can’t be collected by normal sweeps because they get lodged in crevices. The City does 67 manual sweeps every 24 hours. I suspect that, at £80 a pop, if people keep leaving them outside banks and so on, it could be a bit of a money-spinner.

In the country as a whole, according to Keep Britain Tidy and Encams, 200 million butts are discarded in the UK every day, which represents about 122 tonnes of litter.

Do you have a diary story? city.diary@thetimes.co.uk

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