TimesOnline reports; Adolf Merckle, the 74-year-old head of a conglomerate that employs thousands in Britain and elsewhere in Europe, killed himself on Monday.

After writing a suicide note for his family, he checked the railway timetable and walked to the track that ran close to his home in the village of Blaubeuren, southwest Germany.

Kirk Stephenson, the 47-year-old New Zealand-born chief operating officer at the private equity firm Olivant, died instantly when he was hit by a train at Taplow station in Buckinghamshire, on September 25 last year. A jury returned a verdict of suicide.

René-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet, 65, a French financier, locked the door of his New York office last month, swallowed sleeping pills and slashed his wrists with a craft knife. He was facing losses from investing with the alleged fraudster Bernard Madoff. His family said that his suicide was a “matter of honour”.

Paulo Sergio Silva, 36, a trader for the brokerage arm of the Brazilian banking giant Itaú, shot himself in the chest during the afternoon trading session of São Paulo’s commodities and futures exchange in an apparent suicide attempt in November. Trading stopped for about 15 minutes.