Rory Cullinan is clearly not one to shy away from a challenge – having joined Royal Bank of Scotland in February 2009 as head of the non-core division, where his responsibilities include finding buyers for the part-nationalised UK bank’s disparate global assets.

Despite the obvious difficulties associated with achieving fair value as a forced seller in a depressed market, Cullinan has been on something of a roll. Since his arrival, he has sold or exited 22 businesses since his arrival and raised some £14bn (€16.8bn) in the process.