Body tailoring is just another bonus of working in London's Square Mile

Male bankers collecting the best bonuses for years are spending some of their new wealth on plastic surgery to reshape their noses or slim their flabby stomachs.

One of the largest cosmetic surgery companies says it took 40 per cent more bookings from workers in London's financial district last month than its previous record month, last January.

Rising mergers and acquisitions activity and a soaring stock exchange this year have contributed to the highest bonus money sloshing round the Square Mile for four years.

But financial traders, analysts and lawyers are realising that the "live hard, play hard" ethos that may have earned them their fortunes has also given them craggy faces and bulging waistlines.

With cosmetic surgery becoming more acceptable and money no option, many are choosing to go under the knife.

The Harley Medical Group says bookings from financiers at its City clinic have been soaring. It believes that City professionals are now opting for "body tailoring" in the way that they used to favour real tailoring in Saville Row.

The group, which has 11 clinics nationwide, says the most popular procedure for bank workers (45 per cent) is liposuction, followed by rhinoplasty, or nose jobs (32 per cent), and "injectable treatments" (15 per cent), mostly botox for facial lines.

Clinic manager Tammy Campbell said: "Most of the male patients are bothered about stubborn fat on their stomach and flanks, and say they feel terribly self-conscious and uncomfortable in the gym, and that this is their main motivation.

"City patients tend to be well-researched when they come in for their first consultation with a specialist cosmetic surgery nurse. If accepted for surgery, a high proportion of City boys opt to go ahead with surgery. The most common question is, 'When will I be ready to go back to work?"'

Clinics can charge a minimum of 3000 ($7671) for liposuction and 4000 for rhinoplasty.

Money is unlikely to be a problem in the City this year. A Morgan McKinley survey found that nearly three-quarters of City employees expected their bonus to be higher than last year.

Payouts for many will be in the hundreds of thousand of pounds. Some may get between 5 million and 10 million.

Adam Searle, president of the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons, said wealthy male clients in their 40s and 50s thought no more of spending 10,000 ($25,572) on a nose job than they would of spending 10,000 on a coat.

"They are often people for which many aspects of their life are sorted. They are successful at work, they have high incomes, they have a home life but they are worried about their saddlebags.

"They assume that they can buy a better body in much the same way that they would buy a fast car. A lot of them live and play hard, but now that they are 44 to 48 their bodies are not what they used to be, and many find that difficult to live with."

- INDEPENDENT