Dreams’ founder and former chief executive Mike Clare might have been disappointed to have lost out on buying back the beds and furniture retailer - that he sold in 2008 - last week.

However, he will surely still be taking some comfort in the money that he made from the sale.

Some have suggested that when Clare was bartering with private equity group Exponent about the price tag for his company ahead of the sale, the colourful entrepreneur pushed up his asking price from £220m to £222m.

Why the last-minute grab on an extra £2m, you might ask? Because he wanted the figures to represent sleepy ‘ZZZ’ characters.

It’s doubtful that Exponent was able to take any such liberties when selling the business to Sun European last week for £35m.