QUINTESSENTIAL QUINN

Imagine an Irish company that leads the world in its chosen realm, with 6,000 employees internationally, and an annual turnover of £560 million. Normally such a firm would rarely be out of the headlines. "There is always a group of business people travelling around who want to stay at the top end of the market," he adds. "Hotels are very long-range investments. Anything can make sense in good times - it has to make sense in bad times, and I believe it does."

But it is not Glen Dimplex's style to adopt a high profile, says Lochlann Quinn, deputy chairman of the company. Mr Quinn joined Glen Dimplex, founded by Martin Naughton, in 1980. The firm has a reputation for shunning publicity. Mr Quinn says it has its reasons.

"We don't hire PR people. It's a private company. Public companies do need a certain image, because of people buying their stock; we don't have stock for sale," he says.

Also, just 2 per cent of its sales are in Ireland, so there is little to gain from courting the local press.

"What we have is a series of businesses throughout Europe which in many cases are deemed local in their own community," he adds. "I think when the British housewife walks into Argos and buys a Morphy Richards kettle, she thinks she's buying a fine British product. Well, Morphy Richards is a British company, it just happens to be owned in Ireland."

Glen Dimplex has no intention of establishing a mega-brand, when it can use this series of strong local brands in each market. Each has its chief executive, its own management team, its own marketing group.

Add them all together, though, and the Glen Dimplex group controls 60 per cent of the European electric heating industry.

"We rationalise our production, it can be coming out of specialised factories, but going into three or four different companies then re-branded."

Three quarters of its sales are in heaters, but the company is now expanding its small household appliances divisions. Currently, Glen Dimplex is market leader in this field in Britain and Ireland, and increasing its share in other countries.

"We have a strategy to build a small domestic appliance company, a new brand, for continental Europe," he says.

In the European heater market, Glen Dimplex sees room for serious growth to the east, where former communist economies are now upgrading hundreds of thousands of sub-standard houses.

In recent months, the company has also invested heavily in France, and now owns a controlling interest in Muller, the country's electric heating giant. Given the state of the French economy, and predictions that just meeting the criteria for the single currency will cause the country pain, the move surprised many.

"It's often not a bad idea to buy into a country when the economy is down," says Mr Quinn. "If it's on a boom you may well pay too much. France is a big country, it's a wealthy country. Recessions don't last forever, booms don't last forever. France will come right again."

The boom in Ireland, however, could go on longer than most, he believes, because increasing globalisation suits the economy.

"Many of the industries of tomorrow's world are knowledge-based. We have a well educated population, capable of running these industries. English is the business language of the world, and because of modern communications you can actually run these businesses from anywhere."

He retains a degree of scepticism about some of the pillars of the European project. Immediate membership of the single currency could be a bad move for the Republic if only a hard core of currencies join in the first wave. If Ireland's export market competitors, Britain, Italy and Spain, remain outside they would retain currency flexibility. Also, the notion of an economic union without a political one is untested. What happens, he asks, when there is an economic shock in one region of the EU? There appears to be no leeway for the whole to bail out its parts.

"Historically, in the United States, when this occurred, people upped and left. The population is mobile. When you get economic shock in a single-currency European Union, the population is not mobile, for reasons of history, language and culture."

He is also strongly against the idea of re-valuing the pound.

"I'm not just saying this because I'm a manufacturer here. If EMU happens and we join, it's a long-haul decision, I think it's in the interest of Ireland to enter with as competitive a currency as possible."

"Despite all the talk of our value against sterling, and the potential for inflation, there's no sign of it yet. That doesn't mean it won't appear over the next four, five, six years, but I would be reasonably optimistic that inflation is not likely for us in the runin to EMU."

For the banking sector, of course, and for Allied Irish Banks, of which he is now chairman, EMU spells significant losses in foreign exchange revenue. Most analysts also expect a shake-out in the sector in the wake of the single currency.

But, he believes, AIB, with over 50 per cent of its assets outside Ireland, is big enough to come through, and even expand.

"For example, we now have a 60 per cent ownership of WBK, a major bank in Poland. And if you look at the size of Poland, with 40 million people . . . fast forward 20 years, the Polish economy is running at the same level as the German economy or the French economy, and all using home loans and credit cards et cetera - how big will that bank be?"

He hints that the bank is planning further acquisitions, perhaps elsewhere in eastern Europe, but will not elaborate about these plans. Nor is he especially concerned that AIB would be seen by a major European banking player as a juicy little morsel.

"The only way that we can avoid that happening is to run our business so efficiently that the premium paid by a buyer for us isn't worthwhile because they can't deliver a lot of synergy savings." For the next few weeks, however, one project will take up a disproportionate amount of Lochlann Quinn's time. He and his partner in Glen Dimplex, Martin Naughton, have built an 146-bedroom hotel, across the road from the Taoiseach's office in Dublin. It is due to open in mid-August.

Incorporating Patrick Guilbaud's, in which he also has a stake, and which is, according to the Michelin Guide to Great Britain and Ireland, the best restaurant in Ireland, the hotel will be aimed at the top end of the luxury market. He hopes it will be the best hotel in Dublin, on a par with the George V, or the Bristol in Paris, or the Connaught in London.

"There is always a group of business people travelling around who want to stay at the top end of the market," he adds. "Hotels are very long-range investments. Anything can make sense in good times - it has to make sense in bad times, and I believe it does."