Tony Tan has been thrust into the spotlight. Since taking over as deputy chairman of Singapore’s Government Investment Corp several years ago he has maintained a low profile, in keeping with the giant fund’s preference for attracting as little attention to itself as possible.

But in the past few weeks GIC has abandoned its low-key approach in spectacular style. In December it injected $9bn (£4.6bn, €6.1bn) into UBS to boost the Swiss bank’s capital base, which had been eroded by the meltdown in the US subprime mortgage market. A few weeks later it invested a further $6.9bn in Citigroup.