Gosling's Grouse: Are we back to the '80s with industry deals?

Anyone feel we are going back to the 1980s in some way? Then, we had the ludicrous overpriced acquisition by life companies of estate agents as the great distribution scramble started. Ironically, 30 years later some of those same estate agencies look likely to float on the stockmarket having been through three decades of change - some of it not altogether good. The Cofunds and Cazenove deals are different propositions from the buying and selling of estate agencies, but they serve as a reminder that fundamentally, retail financial services is about manufacturing and distribution. C...