When he took on oil services group Petrofac to set up Petrofac International in 1991, Ayman Asfari struck black gold.

The Syrian-born entrepreneur transformed the firm from a US outfit focused on its domestic market into an international oil business, managing rigs all over the world and designing its own drilling and refinery equipment. Now a British citizen, CEO Asfari led the £742m flotation of Petrofac on the London Stock Exchange in October 2005. It's now a FTSE-100 company.

Petrofac has a £3.5bn order book and a strong presence in the Middle East, where Asfari has excellent contacts. With 11,000 staff, it operates out of four strategic sites -Aberdeen, Woking, Sharjah (UAE) and Mumbai - plus a further 20 offices worldwide.

Asfari is committed to the North Sea and said in early 2009: 'The UK continental shelf market remains buoyant. We have added 300 personnel in the UK since January and are continuing to hire.' In November, Petrofac won a five-year, £100m maintenance contract from BP. Its shares have now recovered from the stock market turmoil of late 2008, and the business is worth a cool £3.2bn, on the back of expected profits growth above 20% in 2009. Asfari has a 15.5% stake.