Robert Tchenguiz, the property entrepreneur, lost £1bn in just 24 hours after being forced to offload his stakes in J Sainsbury and Mitchells & Butlers as the fallout of the Icelandic banking crisis hit corporate UK.

Mr Tchenguiz lost up to £600m on the sale of a 10 per cent holding in Britain's third-biggest supermarket chain and about another £400m on his exit from the pub company, making the entrepreneur one of the biggest individual casualties of the credit crunch in the UK. He was said to be taking a philosophical approach last night to his losses.