You could be forgiven for assuming that Invensys, the technology group, is about to be taken over. The £1.2 billion FTSE 100 group appointed Sir Nigel Rudd as chairman yesterday.

The serial company boss, who is 61, will join as deputy chairman next month and succeed Martin Jay at the annual general meeting in July. Shareholders, who have seen the value of their holdings fall from above £4 in mid-2007 to 140½p, could be in for some excitement.

Sir Nigel, knighted in 1996 for services to manufacturing, has been through three mega-deals in as many years. Had Barclays, of which he is deputy chairman, pressed ahead with its audacious tilt at ABN Amro, the Dutch bank, last year, it would have been four.

The forthright Sir Nigel, who was born in Derbyshire and who, aged 20, became Britain’s youngest chartered accountant, sealed his reputation as a dealmaker in 2005 while chairing Boots, the chemist chain, which held merger talks with Alliance UniChem.

Not only did Sir Nigel negotiate the agreement to merge with Alliance, but he later overcame the potential conflicts of interest of Stefano Pessina, the deputy chairman, launching a buyout bid backed by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, the private equity giant. KKR and Mr Pessina agreed to buy Alliance Boots for £11.1 billion last year, in the first example of a blue-chip in London being taken private. It marked the top of the market for private equity deals and has remained unmatched.

Sir Nigel was widely praised for extracting the best price, attracting attention at the time for dismissing as “stupid” analysts who, he said, failed to see the inherent value in the chemists’ group. He also secured a top-notch price when he sold Pilkington, the glassmaker of which he was chairman, to Nippon Sheet Glass of Japan in 2006.

He had less luck with Pendragon, the car dealer that tried to seal a three-way merger with two of its rivals. As chairman again, he managed to secure control of Reg Vardy, but the second prong of the deal, with Lookers, failed to happen.

Sir Nigel remains a director of BAE Systems, the defence manufacturer, and of Sappi, a South African paper company.

He was brought in last year as chairman of BAA, the UK airports operator that had been taken over by Ferrovial, the Spanish support services group, in a £10 billion deal the previous year.

Sir Nigel is married with three children, and is a member of the RAC club. He skis, shoots and plays golf.