Ratcliffe and his lieutenants have looked at a range of options that could legally deprive the Treasury of up to £4bn in tax

The call that put Ineos on the path to the big time came while Sir Jim Ratcliffe — then still plain Jim — was mountain-biking in Scotland. Dismounting and sitting on a rock in Glen Nevis, surrounded by deer, Ratcliffe spoke to Byron Grote, finance director of BP.

Ineos, his deal-hungry industrials group, had been negotiating to buy Innovene, BP’s petrochemicals business — a move that would triple its size and raise its turnover from $7bn to $30bn. A consultant later likened it to “the guppy swallowing the whale”. Grote told Ratcliffe that BP was upping the price from $8bn to $9bn (£5bn at the time). With little choice, Ratcliffe agreed on the spot.

The debt-fuelled takeover of Innovene in 2005 was a typically bold