At school, Arki Busson loved history and sport. He was less enthusiastic about gymnastics and geography, but most of all, he said: “I loved the communal sense of what school was. I liked the friendship and the camaraderie.” Busson’s early capacity for forming relationships has stood him in good stead.

He has made his name not through wagering on stocks or bonds, but by investing in people. The French-Hungarian financier identified and raised money for early US hedge fund managers Paul Tudor Jones, Julian Robertson and Louis Bacon, a trio that spawned a generation of imitators, and is credited with taking them to Europe.