Events that offer to set up wealthy older men with young cash-strapped women, dubbed ‘Sugar Daddy Parties’, are about to hit Britain after becoming popular in the U.S.

The parties have been hosted at swanky New York cocktail bars, where the ‘daddies’ discuss fees for future dates with the women who take their fancy – and its organisers are now seeking London venues.

The 'matchmakers' justify the events by insisting that all participants are consenting adults and 'nobody has to do anything they don't want to' but critics say the parties are bordering on prostitution.

And the scenes from New York venues that have hosted the get-togethers, showing pretty young women hanging off the arms off much older men only add to the sleaziness factor.

On average, fees of $500 per date is said to be common in the U.S., but arrangements worth between $10,000 and $20,000 per month have also been agreed upon in the past, according to its organiser.

Despite denying that they’re encouraging prostitution, organisers say the women are usually aged in their late teens or early twenties and are seeking money to pay for university fees or a more glamorous lifestyle.

And they say there are already thousands of British ‘sugar babies’ waiting to meet ‘daddies’, according to the Daily Telegraph.

The chief executive of the company Seeking Arrangement, Brandon Wade, told the newspaper: ‘We have perfected our parties and are now ready to launch in even bigger markets like London.

‘We are due to start in early 2012.’

At one party hosted at the Hudson Terrace bar in New York, 600 hopefuls turned up to meet their future ‘sugar daddy’ or ‘sugar baby’ and while the men were charged $100 (￡62) to attend, the women paid $40 (￡25) at the door.

The average older man was aged 38, while the average woman was over a decade younger, however some men aged well into their 60s were also in attendance.

Host Alan Schneider told the newspaper his events are ‘elegant, classy and refined’, and Wade boasts two men from Forbes magazines top 10 wealthiest American billionaires among the members of his website.

(Read by Emily Cheng. Emily Cheng is a journalist at the China Daily Website.)