Tesco agreed to sell its Asian businesses to Thai billionaire Dhanin Chearavanont for more than $10bn (€8.8bn), clinching a record deal in Thailand even as the coronavirus outbreak damps enthusiasm for mergers and acquisitions worldwide.

Billionaire Paul Fentener van Vlissingen, one of Scotland’s wealthiest foreign residents, who owned an 80,000-acre estate, has died of cancer, his personal secretary said today. He was 65.