She decided there was nothing there she could not do herself, and herein lies the wealth managers’ dilemma. Almost all do indeed offer very similar investment ideas and portfolios so it is hard for them to differentiate themselves from the competition and hard, also, to demonstrate that what they do is sufficiently skilful to justify their fees.

The obvious question is “Why do they all do the same thing?” but actually to a considerable extent they have no choice. With each successive regulatory twist over the past 30 years the authorities have sought to protect the private investor against loss by progressively narrowing and restricting the range of investments they consider suitable for a private investor to hold. They have tended to come down heavily on brokers who have been found to deviate from the conventional path when this has cost their clients money — but not when it has been profitable. Internal compliance departments have expanded in scope and power and reinforced and exaggerated the regulators’ risk aversion. Over the years this has created an environment where only the largest and safest companies are considered suitable investments.

The regulator convinced the investment community that investing in small companies is inherently dangerous and therefore unsuitable for all but a handful of very sophisticated investors. The inevitable result is that no financial adviser and precious few private client advisers have the stomach to recommend such investments and the report, a couple of weeks ago, that the Financial Conduct Authority was trying alter its focus to support growth was met with a fair degree of scepticism.

We live in a world where no one dares fall foul of the regulator by recommending conventional mediocre investments provided they are big, boring and preferably in the FTSE 100. Today’s rules are a living embodiment of Keynes’ maxim of 80 years ago that, in the financial world, it is much safer to fail in a conventional way than to succeed by doing something different. Thus an investment adviser who recommended Tesco just before it halved in value would get five gold stars from the regulator and the adviser who put that same client into Chi-Med — a Chinese pharmaceutical company listed on the Alternative Investment Market and which has risen more than 400% in the past five years would be lucky to get one.

This is wrong on all sorts of levels. Investment managers specialising in small and medium-sized companies usually do better than their peers who invest in blue-chips, and as fund manager Gervais Williams has shown in his books extolling the virtues of investment in small caps, the overall performance of the sector is usually much better. Growing companies tend to be the most rewarding investments. Small and medium-sized companies are where the growth is, so that is where the most profitable investments re likely to be found.

For the same reasons, the Government has belatedly recognised that small to medium-sized firms are the future and has devoted a considerable amount of energy trying to persuade banks to channel capital into the sector. The banks for their part have used even more energy to find anywhere else to lend their money because they no longer have the expertise to lend profitably to small companies.

At the same time, individuals are told they must save for their old age because the state can no longer afford to keep them. But they are denied access through the excessive prudence of the regulatory system to many of the investments which history has shown are those most likely to make that retirement comfortable and affordable. And the capital which growing businesses need and these individuals could provide is instead parked somewhere safe in government securities or big businesses where it is not needed.

It does not have to be this way. Last week the Stock Exchange organised a dinner to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Alternative Investment Market. It was an enjoyable enough evening but a few of the old hands present could not but compare it with the annual events and awards dinners which its predecessor the USM — or unlisted securities market — used to hold 30 years ago.

The difference was that back in the Eighties every investment bank and broker would be present as would the media and most of the City’s great and good. They were there because they took the USM seriously and appreciated is role as a provider of capital and a nursery for small businesses. These days, in spite of the brave words at last week’s celebration, AIM is not taken as seriously because the investor appetite for smaller companies has been stifled.

Shortage of capital is still cited as a problem by a substantial number of companies which would like to expand. But the implication is that if we really want to see growth improved by freer access to capital for small companies, then the FCA’s culture has to change. If regulation continues to be run on the lines so that no one must be allowed to lose money then, paradoxically, the whole nation will be the poorer.