Sure, he ended his days in a financial and reputation mess but there’s still a lesson for companies in how to trade on nostalgia, according to business student Abbas Khan, who met the King of Pop in 2001.

“What’s the intrinsic value of a commodity?” asks Khan. “He had talent and he had image, but that went into decline. So why is he still famous and selling out [London’s] O2 Arena when he hasn’t released an album in seven years?”

Khan, 28, currently advises the CEO of a start-up bank in Qatar. He met Michael Jackson in February 2001 when Jackson addressed the Union Society at Oxford University, where Khan was studying.

Jackson appeared before a packed debating chamber with Rabbi Schmuley Boteach, the author of Kosher Sex. They talked about how to be good to children.

Oxford was “overcome” with Jackson’s visit, according to Khan, who as guest liaison officer was tasked with ensuring that the pop star would be comfortable during his stay. The world’s press had gathered outside the Union building. One side of the street was lined with Michael Jackson fanatics from across Europe, and the other side was taken up by “anti-child molestation demonstrators”.

Jackson arrived two hours late. Magician Uri Geller entertained the waiting audience by bending spoons and breaking watches. Jackson finally showed up on crutches, with an entourage of about 40 people who “wiped out” Khan’s efforts to liaise with his guest.

However Khan, who spent a good part of the 1980s dressed in imitation “Bad”-era leather pants and jacket, did get to shake his childhood hero’s hand: “It was limp. His face was the most shocking thing. It was completely sculpted. He had the most disorientating nose: it looked like you could roll a ball-bearing down it and it would flick up at the end.”

Jackson appeared traumatized by the press and people swarming around his motorcade when he arrived: “It was weird to see a forty-something man having his knees stroked by other grown men,” says Khan. “I idolised him as a child but when I met him he was just a frail guy who looked rather weird.”

But the link to Khan’s and millions of others’ childhoods is one that endures. “How many corporations could produce nothing for a decade and then sell out a tour? People associate him with good memories. It’s nothing to do with what’s actually there.”

Khan sees some parallel between the launch of his bank in Qatar and Michael Jackson’s Thriller peak. “When we went live with the retail bank there was this perception that it was a good product, it was well-marketed, and we were justifiably proud of something that’s a real market differentiator.”

Following the launch, the usual variety of managerial problems set in and “hope faltered a little bit”. Management has had to respond: “A start-up bank can’t trade on the future forever. At some point the share price has to be underpinned by solid performance. We have to start making money.”

But no business could be managed the way Jackson managed his life after his slow descent began in the late 1980s: throwing money away, racking up $60m in debt, and adopting a monkey and a llama. “You can’t compare him to any well-run business “, says Khan.

But a hit of MBA expertise wouldn’t have improved Jackson's lot, argues Khan: “He already had the best managers, the top lawyers”. He points out that Jackson made some “astute" financial decisions, including buying The Beatles’ back catalog and winning marketing contracts with Pepsi. “He was surrounded by clever people… but after a while the people you go in with aren’t the people you come out with”.