The Churchill hotel in Marylebone, central London, is something of a shrine to Britain’s past glories. In its elegant, wood-panelled bar, guests can inspect photographs and letters of former prime ministers while sipping Churchill-branded gin. There is even a life-sized bronze sculpture of the wartime leader, famed for growling that his country would “never surrender”.

Yet it was in this nostalgia-soaked setting that Philip Yea, chairman of the pubs giant Greene King, first discussed the capitulation of yet another British public company to a foreign buyer.

A Brexit-inspired collapse in sterling has turned quoted firms into cheap prey for international investors and cash-rich private equity firms. So which stock-market stalwart is next, and what are the long-term implications of this frenzy?

Yea knew the Churchill