Opinion - Group A is coming.

Mid-tier firms are showing renewed vigour these days. The traditional Group A merger model may not have come off since Mazars joined with Neville Russell. But consolidation activity is still cutting a decisive swathe through the sector.

Tenon has certainly brokered a handful of deals successfully. But what exactly did that prove other than the fact that there were plenty of senior partners in search of a viable retirement route?

Fellow consolidator Numerica is seeking to raise #25m by the end of today.

The Bank of Scotland and the Royal Bank of Scotland are also set to enter the fray.

Mid-tier players are as frantic as ever to join together to win more business. But what kind of business? They seem, by and large, to have accepted their lot picking up mid-cap business and leaving the richer pickings to the Big Five.

Surely at a time when the bigger players are losing consultancy as well as traditional business this is just defeatism. The smarter mid-tier firms will prove to be the ones who are prepared to step into the breach.

It’s time to flex some marketing muscle. The mid-tier needs blue-chip clients and the corporate world needs greater choice.