Britain's biggest manufacturer is at the centre of a potentially explosive corruption scandal.

Last September, Mark King, the head of civil aerospace at Rolls-Royce , was hosting some very special guests at the jet engine maker's new state-of-the-art facility in Singapore.

King was showing the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (SES: E1:J91U.SI - news) around the giant Seletar campus, which makes Trent (BSE: TRENT.BO - news) engines for the Airbus A380 and the new Boeing (NYSE: BA - news) 787 Dreamliner.

The Duchess was invited to fit the last blade to a Trent 900 engine and turned to King and the Duke with a smile and "fist pump" when she succeeded.

"Here is cutting-edge aerospace technology developed by one of the United Kingdom's great global companies," the Duke said in a speech to the company.

King replied: "We are proud and delighted to welcome their Royal Highnesses to Rolls-Royce as we celebrate two important milestones today: the completion of our first batch of wide-chord fan blades and the completion of the first Trent aero engine assembled and tested in Singapore."

The visit obviously went well for Rolls, because four months later King, who had been running the civil aerospace business since August 2007, was promoted to the expanded role of president of aerospace.

This job combined Rolls' civil aerospace and defence aerospace businesses, meaning that King was responsible for three-quarters of the revenues and profits of Rolls, one of Britain's biggest companies. However, on Thursday, Rolls-Royce shocked the City when as part of its trading update it dedicated one terse line to the fact that King will leave the company.

Rolls said that King, who has worked for the business since 1986, had "decided to resign from the company at the end of June", but gave no reason for his departure.

Given his importance at Rolls and the fact he was promoted only four months ago, analysts were unsettled.

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Rolls-Royce aerospace head quits as bribery fears mount