Wu Xiaohui was shopping in New York. For buildings. “He didn’t really care — he’d point out the window and say: that one!” recalls a real estate executive who met Mr Wu, then chairman of China’s Anbang Insurance. The acquisition strategy — to the extent there was one — appeared to be “the bigger, the better”, the executive recalled.

Among the baubles Mr Wu snapped up was the fabled Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, the preferred Manhattan lodging of visiting kings, presidents and Frank Sinatra. Anbang paid $1.95bn for it in late 2014 — the biggest ever sum for a US hotel.

These days Wu is in jail in China, sentenced to 18 years for fraud and embezzlement. Anbang, meanwhile, is under the control of the Chinese government and looking to unload US properties worth billions of dollars.