Chemicals tycoon Jim Ratcliffe, who has bought Daimler's Smart car factory in northeast France, is a reclusive British billionaire with high-profile ventures in sports and auto manufacturing.

The owner of a 60-percent stake in petrochemicals firm Ineos is bidding to enter the automotive sector with a new 4x4 model called the Ineos Grenadier, billed as a successor to the Land Rover Defender.

The Monaco-based businessman and car enthusiast purchased the Hambach site in Moselle, France, from Daimler's parent group Mercedes-Benz to produce the Grenadier, which he boasts will be the best "utilitarian" vehicle in its class.

Ratcliffe has relocated to Monaco for tax reasons and has assets worth an estimated ?12.15 billion ($16.3 billion, 13.5 billion euros), placing him fifth in Britain's 2020 Sunday Times Rich List.

The Financial Times wrote in July that he has a "hard-nosed reputation and habit for controversy".

British chemicals tycoon Jim Ratcliffe has signed a sponsorship deal with Mercedes' F1 team
British chemicals tycoon Jim Ratcliffe has signed a sponsorship deal with Mercedes' F1 team AFP / Tolga AKMEN

The 68-year-old founder and chairman of Ineos has built up a growing portfolio of sports investments including motor sports.

This year his group agreed a five-year "principal partnership" with the Mercedes Formula One team.

This followed last year's launch of the Team Ineos cycling outfit, formerly known as Team Sky.

That reaped immediate dividends as one of the team's riders, Colombian Egan Bernal, won the 2019 Tour de France.

Ineos also bought Swiss football club Lausanne-Sport in 2017 and last year completed the purchase of French Ligue 1 side Nice.

Ratcliffe, a Manchester United fan, has been mentioned as a possible future owner of Chelsea, if Russian tycoon Roman Abramovich ever sells the Premier League club.

Jim Ratcliffe (left) and Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff (right) have previously had differing views on Brexit
Jim Ratcliffe (left) and Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff (right) have previously had differing views on Brexit AFP / Tolga AKMEN

Elsewhere, Ineos also ploughed ?110 million into British sailor Ben Ainslie's Americas Cup team and sponsored Eliud Kipchoge's successful 2019 project to break the two-hour marathon mark.

The glitzy world of high-end cars and international sport is a long way from Ratcliffe's humble beginnings, growing up in social housing in Manchester, northwest England.

Ratcliffe created Ineos in 1998 and the company went on to become an industrial juggernaut in Britain, a country increasingly dominated by the services sector.

The group has annual sales of around $60 billion and employs around 23,000 people worldwide, with chemicals manufactured by Ineos found in everyday products from shower gel to medication.

Despite his business success, Ratcliffe has long been an enigma and privacy is also a hallmark of his Ineos group, which is not listed on the stock exchange and therefore has no obligation to disclose its accounts.

But the businessman made his views abundantly clear on the thorny issue of Britain's departure from the European Union, which he has publicly backed since 2015.

"The Brits are perfectly capable of managing the Brits and don't need Brussels telling them how to manage things," he told The Sunday Times a year before the June 2016 referendum in favour of leaving the EU.

Pro-EU politicians have accused Ratcliffe of hypocrisy since UK company records disclosed in September that he had officially relocated to tax-haven Monaco rather than keep his assets in Britain.

Ineos had been due to produce the new Grenadier vehicle partly in Portugal and Wales and the news in July that it was holding talks with Daimler in France sparked cries of betrayal in Britain.

Tax concerns had already led Ratcliffe to relocate the headquarters of his company to Switzerland in 2010, before returning to London in 2016, saying he wanted to demonstrate his confidence in post-Brexit Britain.