Unless you have been hiding under a very large rock for the past year and a half, you no doubt would have gathered the impression that the Australian economy is a shining beacon in an otherwise very dark world.
Let's just tick a few of the highlights: The only developed country to not officially tip into recession; the first developed country to raise interest rates as economic growth returns to normal levels; the only developed nation where unemployment refused to kick to anywhere near anticipated levels.
Compared with the US, Britain and Europe, we are a paragon of prudential propriety, a model for the rest of the world to envy and emulate.
Unlike our much larger and more powerful foreign cousins, our well regulated banking system emerged from the financial maelstrom of 2008 and 2009 in robust health, despite a couple of spectacular collapses such as Babcock & Brown.
Of course there was also the added measure of good luck, of being in the right place at the right time, of having a massive quarry in the backyard filled to the brim with everything that a resurgent China - on the brink of resuming its global status after two centuries of shame and ruin - desperately needs.
All of which poses the question: Why would the principals of one of Australia's most successful corporate advisory businesses sell out to an American firm now?
Yesterday Caliburn Partnership's principals struck a deal with US advisory group Greenhill to sell their business for up to $US211 million ($229 million) over five years.
Caliburn is a smallish firm, a boutique operation with just 40 employees that has concentrated purely on advising major corporations on takeovers.
It has a client list that is the envy of its much larger, fully integrated global rivals like Macquarie, UBS, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche and the like.
Caliburn's three founders have sold out for shares in Greenhill - a boutique advice-only firm listed on the New York Stock Exchange - that would deliver them an immediate and quite handsome $US91 million at today's prices.
They earn extra shares for reaching earnings targets during the next few years that, on the surface at least, appear to be well below the amounts they have pulled in during the past three years.
In the arcane, high-octane world of investment banking, the announcement certainly raised some eyebrows, even if it didn't come as a complete surprise.
Were the three founders, Ron Malek, Peter Hunt and Simon Mordant, simply looking for an exit strategy after 11 years in the game? Or have they glimpsed a vision of the future and not liked what they saw?
The answer is most likely a combination of the two, although the official spin was far more anodyne with the usual bizoid babble phrases like ''growing the business'' and ''alignment of interests''.
The fact is the two firms have been working in tandem since 2003. If Greenhill had an Australian deal on the go, it sent its clients to Caliburn. And the local firm referred its clients to Greenhill for any offshore work.
That seems to have been working quite well for seven years without the imperative for a buy-out.
There had been talk several years ago that Caliburn had been talking to the European bank Rothschilds about a sale at the peak of the market. So the prospect of cashing out certainly appears to have entered the minds of the three principals.
Each would have been acutely aware that should any of them retire or resign, the value of the business would suffer. By subsuming themselves into a bigger pool, it is much easier for any or all to make an exit.
For years, debate has raged between the big global investment banks - the on-stop shops with corporate finance, stockbroking, funds management and corporate advice all under one roof - and the boutiques. The boutiques claim the bigger firms have an inherent conflict of interest. (There's that ugly phrase again.)
Clearly, it is an argument that has resonated in the boardrooms of the world's most powerful companies because the boutiques have carved out a lucrative niche for themselves here and overseas.
But the main concern for anyone working in the financial sector right now is the state of the global economy. Australia may be travelling OK, but the rest of the world certainly isn't.
After an early shake-out in January, global sharemarkets have hit a holding pattern. A 70 per cent rise on Wall Street since its nadir a year ago has exhausted the momentum investors and value investors are scratching their heads at just how expensive stocks have become.
With many governments now removing their economic stimulus packages, central banks in various stages of disagreement on issues ranging from regulation reform to compliance with the current rules, and signs of an imminent trade war between America and China, the future is anything but certain.
Perhaps that is one reason that many of the big global investment banks beefed up their Australian operations in the past year; one of the very few areas in the world that is showing any promise as the resources boom from China rolls relentlessly on.
That has made the Australian investment banking market a very crowded and hugely competitive place.
Australian companies raised close to $80 billion in new equity last year to pay down debt, a trend that delivered huge fees to the investment banks involved, particularly UBS.
This year there will be a mere fraction of that kind of equity raising. And with fairly subdued takeover activity forecast, fees are likely to be spread fairly thinly.
More competition for a reduced pool of fees. Do the maths. The Caliburn Partnership has.
