At an exclusive 2011 black-tie dinner in a London ballroom, the cream of Britain’s political and business elite gathered to praise a man and company which over the previous decade had reshaped the UK economy.

“You deserve such warm thanks, not only from everyone here . . . but from the country,” Nick Clegg, then the deputy prime minister, told the audience at the event hosted by the Asia House think-tank. Former cabinet office minister Oliver Letwin extolled the virtues of “the most distinguished industrialist, and one who has brought huge benefit to our country and indeed to his own”.

The recipient of this praise was Ratan Tata, a septuagenarian in his penultimate year as chairman of India’s Tata Sons, which oversees a 152-year-old business empire spanning dozens of companies in everything from manufacturing to airlines, retail and IT. At the turn of the millennium it embarked on an overseas shopping spree — with the UK at its core — that for many encapsulated the heyday of an era of globalisation.