Last year the UK's Prudential paid ￡503m in dividends; this year it will pay almost as much in fees for a deal that didn't happen. Yesterday's disclosure of a ￡450m bill for the cack-handed attempt to buy AIA surely threatens the positions of Tidjane Thiam, chief executive, and also chairman Harvey McGrath. For the same money M&G, Pru's funds arm, could have bought Gartmore or F&C Asset Management, or for that matter, any company below the FTSE 350. Hell, the group could have taken a 2 per cent stake in AIA in the now-likely IPO.

About 60 basis points of the original deal (￡153m) as a break fee to AIG seems reasonable compensation for time wasted; Rio Tinto paid 100 bps to Chinalco last year. Much less defensible is ￡38m (25bps) to banks for blocking off their balance sheets ahead of the ￡15bn rights issue. Given that UK corporates have raised just ￡2bn in total follow-on equity offerings since the day the deal was struck, according to Dealogic, the opportunity cost of setting aside that capital was negligible. Currency hedges probably cost about ￡250m, and would have been about double, had the dollar not helpfully strengthened.

Tying up 30 banks in the underwriting syndicate, meanwhile, meant that very few houses were free to produce research on the merits, or otherwise, of the deal. Pru, in effect, bought their silence. The banks, of course – knowing they stood to gain millions in fees, whatever the outcome, and however shambolic the campaign – were happy to play along. Mr Thiam and Mr McGrath, both on three-year terms, are lucky that investors do not get to vote on their re-election at the AGM next Monday. Regardless of their fates, the moral of the story is obvious. Listen a little more to shareholders, and a little less to investment bankers.