Proving that you don't have to be a heartless mercenary to be an investment banker more than 100 staff from the London office of Merrill Lynch last month volunteered to help Crisis, a UK charity, in its Christmas campaign to house London's homeless.
Their task was to turn an old bus depot in a south London suburb, into Europe's largest Christmas shelter for the homeless - Crisis expects over 4,000 people to use it.
There was a fair turn-out from senior management to lead the effort: Guy Dawson and Ed Annunziato who with European investment-banking co-head Justin Dowley have pushed Merrill up the M&A league tables in Europe in the last two years; Simon Mackenzie-Smith, co-head of UK investment banking; and Federico Aliboni, head of consumer products and retail.Antony Currie