City veteran Gerald Ronson today said greedy investors must share the blame with bankers and regulators for the meltdown in financial markets.

The 69-year-old, one of the Guinness Four found guilty of share-trading fraud in the 1980s, said "a cocktail of greed and inexperience" among investors fuelled the crisis.

Ronson, chief executive of developer Heron International, the firm behind the Heron Tower being built in the City, called for "a return to basics and good, old-fashioned property investment values" based on equity rather than debt.

He said: "If there is one phrase that sums up how I see the last few years, it is 'if it looks too good to be true, that's because it probably is'."

Speaking at the Heron annual lunch in London, Ronson added: "The finger of blame has been pointed at many, but probably none more so than the banks. But the crisis we are in is not their sole responsibility.

"You need to look at the investors too; investors who have been demanding double-digit returns without questioning how they are made. A cocktail of greed, coupled with inexperience, has fuelled our problems."

Turning to the property industry, he said: "I could never understand how people could buy a property without even seeing it. I visit all ours regularly, and yet certain investors don't ever go out and about.

"You have to know your business and, most important of all, your tenants - you have to be professional. Businesses need to be run by people who understand and know their industry. The result of this chronic lack of experience and expertise is an epidemic of insolvencies."

Ronson said "the climate is tougher than for many years", adding: "I don't expect any short-term recovery. But when it does return, I do not believe it will rise in the same way as it has in the past."