Levine, 55, has stakes in a number of small quoted oil and energy groups, including President Petroleum, worth £32m.Of Russian descent, he trained as a corporate lawyer, then made his first fortune as chairman of Imperial Energy Corporation, a London-based oil explorer that has its main fields in western Siberia.

He floated Imperial Energy on the stock market in 2004, when it was valued at £2.25m. In 2008, Imperial accepted a £1.4billion takeover bid by ONGC, the state-owned Indian energy giant. Levine’s stake was worth £80m. He has other assets.