After spending his time at Cambridge University studying law and playing rugby, Coombs went into investment banking. In 1992, he set up the emerging markets fund manager Ashmore as a division of the bank ANZ Group. His hunch was that investments in less-developed economies would outperform those in the US and Europe. He led a management buyout of Ashmore in 1999 and later took the business onto the stock market. The FTSE250 firm is worth £1.2bn and Coombs still owns 29.4 per cent of the shares. Coombs has a reputation as a frugal billionaire for his Spartan wardrobe and at times eating just one meal a day to keep his weight down.