After years of analysing and advising businesses, Mr Michael Laffan took the plunge last year and, with his business partner, Mr Gerry Currid, acquired Waterford Stanley.

The Waterford-based cast-iron range cooker and stove manufacturer is more than 100 years old. It now employs 450 people in Waterford and at the old Pierce's factory in Wexford, having shed 75 jobs earlier this year.

"We knew before we even concluded the deal that there was significant change required to prepare the company, not only for survival in the short term, which is key, but also for growth and development in the long term," Mr Laffan says.

"I feel, and I'm sure others would agree, that in the year we have effectively owned and managed Waterford Stanley, we have made very substantial progress with a very broadly based and active support from the staff at large. Inevitably, there have been moments when we don't agree, but in the context of the level of change we're working on, across each function, I am pleased with the progress we have made within and through the organisation."

Specifically, changes have been made to manufacturing processes, to the firm's approach to markets and existing customers, and to developing new markets.

Waterford Stanley is also inventing or sourcing new products, and concentrating on how their products and brands are perceived - capitalising on the "solidity, Irishness, robustness and comfortness in the home" of the cast-iron range cookers, for example. While Mr Laffan has a very high regard for the skills he has found in Waterford Stanley - cast engineering and metallurgy enamelling, for example - and for the engineers and scientists there, he says that ultimately, it is a heavy metal industry, with high labour costs. Therefore, the company is considering sourcing the basic cast-iron products elsewhere.

This will have implications for jobs in some activities, but also will provide opportunities for extra jobs in other areas. "We see the opportunity to grow the business with existing and new products by having very efficient assembly and enamelling operations in Ireland, and we're proportionately going to add value to the end product," he says.

Mr Laffan says it was his and Mr Currid's ambition to take an Irish company and to develop it. The two are joint managing directors. "Gerry took specific responsibility for the production, manufacturing, finance and administration areas, and I took responsibility for sales, marketing, R&D and customer service," he explains.

Since taking over the Waterford plant, he has been involved in the development of new products to complement the existing range, using gas and electric technology. There is, for instance, a new range of Waterford-branded steel range cookers, which proved quite a hit at the recent Ideal Homes exhibition. The outsourced cookers are currently made by a licensed manufacturer.

Mr Laffan is trying to establish the kind of volumes required before he would consider manufacturing products such as these here.

There are also additions to the present range of stoves, (smaller heating units), including one using electricity. Distribution of these is currently under discussion with the ESB. "It's absolutely essential to have the courage to test new products and new concepts to enable us to grow the product going forward."

Waterford Stanley cookers have a green-wellies and country-living sort of image, with prices ranging from £1,500 to £5,000. "They are not cheap. We don't ever see them as being sold in discount stores on a Tuesday night. Few of our competitors deliver the combination of warmth in the living area, central heating for the entire house, hot water and also the cooking required for the home.

"It really is the engine of the domestic environment, but also perfect for its beauty. Amortised over 25 years, it's not an expensive product," he says.

Acquiring Waterford Stanley, however, did not mean a relocation from Dublin to Waterford - he commutes from his home in Dublin because the family needs to be located there. His wife is Brigid Laffan, the Jean Monet professor of European politics at UCD. The couple met at college and have three children, Diarmuid (15), Katie (12) and Roisin (10).

Born in Murroe, Co Limerick, Michael Laffan was educated at St Munchin's College in Limerick and was among the first intake of 100 students into the then NIHE in Limerick in 1972. He "majored in economics and picked up a couple of languages" - namely French, German and Dutch - and also studied accounting and marketing.

This might not at first sight appear the background from which you would expect a kitchen appliance manufacturer to come, but Mr Laffan later worked for Westinghouse and Thorn EMI. "I've never had a view you need to be steeped in a particular functional activity to be able to manage," he says. "Ultimately, managing a business is about leading and motivating people, managing people."

After college, he joined the European Commission, working as an economist in DG Three with small and medium enterprises. "I quickly realised it wasn't for me. I didn't want to be in a canteen - food very good, prices very low - that served 5,000 to 6,000 people a day."

So, he returned to Limerick and Shannon Development to work on creating economic development on a regional level. It was exciting, he says, but "I got a little tired of analysing statistics and felt more interested in causing some statistics to happen".

After setting up Electrolux in Ireland in 1986/87, he took a totally different turn in 1989 to establish the short-lived Century Radio. "That was a wonderful experience in dealing with the coalface of change - from the point of view of existing State companies - to attitudes in major Irish institutions towards a fledgling radio operation, and investors in terms of investment. It was a very intense time, a very passionate time. I enjoyed it very much and I'm delighted to see that its subsequent manifestation is doing well."

He was disappointed the station did not work but says, from looking at radio stations in Britain, he knew investors would have to take a long view.

"The expectations and patience and the capital to sustain the organisation for a long period of time, such as five to six years, was perhaps less than it needed to be."

Thorn EMI then asked him to take over its Benelux operation, which included 100 retail outlets in three countries and involved a lot of people management.

"People have to trust you," he says of his approach towards colleagues. "They don't always have to like what you do. Even when the truth is tough, don't tell them lies. If you do that, you will gain the commitment from people.

"If it's great news, let's have a party; if it's time to take out the measuring stick and figure out how we're going to go forward, share with me and contribute. Lots of good people in organisations get frustrated because they can't contribute."

Michael Laffan is a very serious person, very committed to what he is doing and was quite shocked when it was put to him that some people believed he was just asset-stripping when he took over Waterford Stanley.

"It's our intention to keep it and develop it. We're signing long-term distribution contracts, long-term manufacturing agreements.

"You don't come from a background of having worked for many years of managing businesses and having seen them grow and develop, and taking pride from that fact, and suddenly turn into asset-strippers.

"Neither of our backgrounds has been involved in a history of asset stripping and our business plan, which excited and motivated our investors to back us, had nothing to do with asset stripping," he points out.

The current owners intend to be careful custodians of the business so in 100 years time somebody is going to say, "it's great to have a business that is 200 years old".

Michael Laffan used to play rugby and squash, and jog - he still jogs, but on treadmills now - and relaxes by playing guitar.