Stephen Mayne, the high-profile shareholder activist, wants him cloned. Board directors who have been on the receiving end of his – sometimes personal – criticism decline to say anything at all. And others say he’s always been the same old character, spoiling for a fight.

Ask for one word to sum up David Kingston, lawyer, former Rothschild banker, pub owner and now serial annual meeting attendee? If it’s not pest, it’s scorpion – because there’s always a sting. “He enjoys the intellectual jousting,” says a person who has worked with him. Another who has come up against him goes further: “He’s professionally vicious.”