This is the story of how self-made billionaire and entrepreneur Jim Ratcliffe built one of the world's biggest companies in just twenty years. What began in 1998 as a small Belgium manufacturing business is now a $60 billion global colossus on a mission to save Europe's chemicals industry.

Born into a working-class family in Manchester, Ratcliffe has gambled everything to get where he is. From persuading a single bank to lend him $9 billion to being within days of going under, his is truly a tale of our times.

An extreme sports enthusiast and inveterate risk- taker, Ratcliffe's company – INEOS – is now leading the UK's shale gas revolution and is poised to begin revitalising the North Sea oil fields. Although al low- profile figure in UK public life, Ratcliffe's life story puts those of far better-known businessmen in the shade.

High Satekes is a rags-to-riches story, which dramatically details the company's twenty-year trajectory to becoming a multi -billion pound world-wide business group and significant player in the chemical and oil industries.