The City's financiers again showed they had a heart last night and dug deep at Arki Busson's annual gala dinner to benefit his Ark organisation, with an Arcadian-themed dinner raising £14.4m (€17.6m) to help fund the charity's projects in the UK and Africa.

The figure, slightly lower than the £15.6m raised last year (which was itself well ahead of Busson's £10m target) after hedge funds had suffered their worst 12 months on record, will benefit Ark's new health and education schemes in southern African nations by partnering with programmes launched by Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan. Ark's fundraising tally since 2002 now exceeds £156m.