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Strolls around the financial districts of Canary Wharf and Liverpool Street suggested that many City workers had ditched the pinstripes and rummaged through their drawers to find the worst possible examples of mum’s home knitting or their other half’s sense-of-humour-failure novelty sweater. Our meetings that day suggested that the memo had not reached the C-suites of many banks. But trading floors certainly got into the festive spirit.
Nowhere more so than at the new, cuddly Citigroup. Fresh from the bank’s PR triumph onBBC TV show The Choir, CitiFXWire chief Lee Oliver – once of this parish – came to work resplendent in a bright red jumper with a Christmas pudding where his washboard stomach used to be.
So imagine his surprise when he got to his desk and realized colleague Simon Bevan – who sits next to him on the floor – was wearing exactly the same jumper.
Avid readers of Front End will know that Citi’s FX team has some form in this area: in previous years, members of the trading floor have donned colour-coded T-shirts in a competitive attempt to mobilize voters in our annual FX survey.
Maybe next year they’ll divide themselves up into Heston Blumenthal’s tipsy cake and Nigella Lawson’s chocolate brownies with icing sugar.
But for now, we’ll leave you with a photo of Citi’s right pair of Christmas puddings.