My interview with Liontrust Asset Management chief executive John Ions has got off to a shaky start. The login details for our Skype call have failed and I spend the first couple of minutes of our meeting talking to a blank laptop screen.

We eventually resort to the telephone, which seems strangely quaint during a period which has seen an explosion in the use of video conferencing and online communication amid the Covid-19 pandemic – something that is not lost on the 53-year-old.