Joe Lewis’s acquisition of an $860 million (£424 million) stake in the investment bank Bear Stearns is another reminder that he is a billionaire with an eye for a deal, regardless of the sector.

Mr Lewis left Britain for the Bahamas as a tax exile in 1979 and since then has assiduously avoided the limelight. Few figures could own a controlling interest in a Premier League football club, count Tiger Woods among their golfing partners and have avoided death in a mysterious helicopter explosion while still remaining out of the public eye.

Born in a pub in the East End of London in 1937, he left school at 15 to work for his father’s catering business as a waiter. Even then, his entrepreneurial streak was evident: he once moved a concrete bus stop sign to the outside of his father’s café to increase trade.

Tavistock Group, which he set up in the mid1970s, now boasts a portfolio of more than 100 companies. He made his fortune with the Beefeater pub chain, investing in London’s St Katharine Docks, just as it began to reap the benefits of regeneration. By the end of the decade he had moved into currency trading, but his acumen in property remains. Observers believe that it is the underlying value of Bear Stearns’s property interests that attracted Mr Lewis. He also owns 60 per cent of shares in Tottenham Hotspur, along with his younger business partner Daniel Levy.

Mr Lewis now divides his time between his mansion in Lyford Cay, in the Bahamas, where he lives with his second wife, Jane, and his other homes around the world. He has recently turned his hand to developing golfing and casino resorts in the Caribbean, combining two of his great passions.

Friends say that Mr Lewis, whose accent still bears traces of his Cockney roots, is well read and takes an interest in geopolitics and macroeconomics. His art collection features works by Picasso, Miro and Chagall and he once donated £2.5 million to the Wallace Collection in London. Other beneficiaries have included a medical centre in Florida and a charitable foundation set up in memory of his father, who died of cancer.

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