'We're about to take a couple of hundred quid from you to pay for this year's Christmas party.' That was the basic message Jefferies' international CEO Tim Cronin sent to UK managing directors earlier this year, informing them that £200 would be taken from their October payroll unless they said otherwise.

The move is not new for the US bank, which had its Christmas party at a conference venue in Bishopsgate last night, according to merrymakers in the know. Its senior London bankers got the same email the previous year, according to memos seen by FN - the only difference being last year it was sent by then-chief executive David Weaver.