Sunny Verghese learnt what he needed to succeed in the no-prisoners-taken world of global commodities trading as the 26-year-old boss of a cotton plantation in Ngurore, a small town in north-east Nigeria.

It was 1986 and Mr Verghese had just landed a job with Kewalram Chanrai, the Indian conglomerate, to resolve a problem. The 150-year-old company owned a textile mill in Nigeria, but the foreign exchange crisis engulfing the African country made it difficult to procure raw materials in the international market. The answer was to grow cotton locally and vertically integrate the operation.

Soon after, Mr Verghese, an Indian with a degree in agricultural management and not much business experience, found himself running one of Africa’s biggest cotton plantations – hundred of kilometres from the country’s capital.