When Goldman Sachs chief Lloyd Blankfein welcomed Lakshmi Mittal to the bank's board this week by saying the steel billionaire had "a keen understanding of the global economy, having operated in virtually every corner of the world", he may have recalled the day Mr Mittal asked the bank to lead the Arcelor takeover.

According to a breathless account of the merger in the book Cold Steel , "Lakshmi" made the call to Mr Blankfein - "a balding man with an astronaut's smile" - to ask Goldman to be his lead adviser on the way to his private jet.