For bankers with long memories, the irony was inescapable. Ten years after Wall Street was called upon to bail out Long Term Capital Management, the fallen hedge fund, the world’s top banks had once again been called into an emergency meeting in the headquarters of the New York Federal Reserve.

This time, though, the gathering of bankers, which began at 6pm on Friday night as downtown Manhattan emptied for the weekend, was to save one of their own.