The Shelbourne is owned by Kantaka Enterprises, a consortium of five businessmen who bought the hotel in 2004 for €120 million and have spent a further €83 million refurbishing it.
• Bernard McNamarahas become a leading property developer in Dublin, with a string of high-profile purchases over the past 12 months. The former Fianna Fáil councillor, who recently donated €2.5 million to Trinity College for a chair in construction innovation, is completing a vast office and apartment complex at Elm Park, in Dublin 4. More recent deals include heading the consortium that bought the Irish Glass Bottle Company, in Ringsend, for an estimated €411 million. He owns 45 per cent of the Conrad Hotel in Dublin and has bought one of the country's great hotels, the Parknasilla.
• His fellow developer Jerry O'Reillyis a chartered surveyor originally from Co Kerry. With McNamara he owns the Radisson SAS Hotel in Galway. With McNamara, Doyle and the other members of Select Retail Holdings he bought Superquinn for €450 million. O'Reilly is involved with McNamara in countless other projects, among them Elm Park. His hotel portfolio also includes the Aghadoe Heights, the Derrynane, the Kilkenny Ormonde and Kilcoran Lodge.
•The hotelier John Sweeney, son of a Co Galway publican, owns Clifden-based Sweeney Oil. His brother Terry is a publican and hotelier who owns the Schoolhouse, in Dublin 4, among others. Sweeney developed the successful Clifden Station House hotel complex in Co Galway. He also owns the Marriott Johnstown Hotel & Spa, in Co Meath, and a Holiday Inn in Killarney.
• Bernard Doyleand David Courtneyare partners in the commercial property consultancy Spain Courtney Doyle. Originally agents for large property deals, they have in recent years taken some of the action themselves, particularly in the purchase of the Superquinn portfolio and the redevelopment of Elm Park. Doyle, with his brothers Eoin and Evan, created the BrookLodge & Wells Spa at Macreddin Village, in Co Wicklow.