Vincent Tchenguiz, the property entrepreneur, is to sell his share in a £490 million Tesco supermarkets joint venture. The Times

The sale will be followed by a refinancing of up to £700m of Tchenguiz's residential property to help to fund expansion elsewhere.

The financial rejigging at Tchenguiz's Consensus Group comes amid growing concern over the ability of many highly leveraged private property investors to refinance borrowings on their assets this year as loan terms come up for renewal.

However, sources said that the company had good cashflows and was looking to generate what Tchenguiz hopes will be substantial gains in capital values made on old acquisitions.