Declan Ganley relishes a challenge, despite having suffered at the sharp end of the dotcom collapse, writes Jamie Smyth, Technology Reporter.

There is something of the Scarlet Pimpernel about the 35-year-old Galway-based entrepreneur Mr Declan Ganley. Like the character in Baroness de Orczy's novel, the former builder turned jet-setting telecoms guru keeps popping up in the most exotic of places only to slip away with hardly a trace.

Over the past 15 years his business ventures have taken him to Siberia, Latvia, Bulgaria, the US and lately war-torn Iraq. He has dabbled in timber, telecoms and, recently, taxis.

But despite cameo appearances on popular US news networks such as CNN, no-one yet seems capable of pinning down exactly how much the elusive Mr Ganley is really worth?

So, when on the third attempt I finally catch up with him in the bar of Dublin's Shelbourne Hotel for our interview, I can't resist getting that vulgar question out of the way early in the discussion.

"I'm not pulling your leg. It is very subjective," says Mr Ganley, who is characteristically coy about the financial details of his affairs. "I don't know what my net worth is. It would depend on how you would value those assets that we have. And if they are not held in a public (corporate) vehicle it is difficult to establish a fair value."

The Ganley Group of Companies' website lists his three main interests as a cable television firm, Cable Bulgaria; a 37.5 per cent stake in the pan-European wireless operator called Broadnet; and an e-business company called Rivada Solutions.

Rivada Solutions is the only one of these three firms that is incorporated in the Republic and its last accounts show that it had chalked up losses worth €500,000 by December 31st, 2001.

"We have invested some money and resources and built an e-business platform. But this operation has been mothballed until the market is ready," says Mr Ganley, who is immaculately turned out in his trademark pinstripe suit.

The two other communications companies linked to the Ganley Group are incorporated abroad, making it difficult to analyse the operating performance.

Cable Bulgaria has about 300,000 customers and is now the biggest cable firm in the country, says Mr Ganley, who set it up in the late 1990s by acquiring a number of pirate operations and subsequently getting them licensed by the state.

Mr Ganley says he brought in US investment from several hedge funds to help him fund the company and its operations. Media reports have linked a US investment fund controlled by Goldman Sachs, Catamount Partners, to the firm.

There are signs that the Ganley Group's other communications venture, the fixed wireless firm Broadnet, may have run into trouble. Initially proposed as a pan-European telecoms operator, many of the firm's operating units have now been merged with other European companies.

Mr Ganley says his 37.5 per cent interest in Broadnet has been sold to the majority stakeholder in the venture, US cable television giant Comcast.

"We got out at the right time because the whole sector got hit by a tidal wave which hit the communications sector," says Mr Ganley, who admits the firm's valuation has fallen sharply since launch.

Other new economy ventures backed by Mr Ganley, such as the jewellery website Adornis.com, also hit hard times during the dotcom implosion. The firm, which was based in the US, closed down in 2000 when the Ganley Group and its partner, the luxury goods conglomerate Compagnie Financiere Richemont, pulled the plug on the e-tailer.

Subsequently, other online jewellers, such as Blue Nile, have moved into profit and Mr Ganley admits it was a tough decision to pull the plug on Adornis.com.

"I don't know if that was the right decision. We could have put more money into it on a new platform but I got cold feet," says Mr Ganley.

"I wasn't prepared to keep stumping up the capital as I couldn't predict the cashflow."

But despite being on the sharp end of the dotcom collapse, Mr Ganley has not lost his appetite for entrepreneurial challenge.

Born in Watford, north London, in 1968 to Irish parents, Mr Ganley returned to Ireland most summers as a teenager to visit his grandparents. At the age of 13 he moved back to Galway and attended a convent school run by the Sisters of Mercy.

"Those were very happy years and I took a great interest in Irish music and I joined the FCA," he says. "I knew I wanted to be in business from an early age and was already making up to £800 by selling turf every summer."

After school Mr Ganley moved to London where he briefly worked on a building site before becoming involved in insurance.

The twentysomething insurance salesmen gradually became involved in business with the former Soviet Union through contacts in Latvia and Siberia in the timber trade. Acting as middle man in the export of timber, Mr Ganley built up a business that was eventually sold in 1997 for an undisclosed amount. Seven years later he still refuses to give any details of the cash windfall that he received that helped him fund his later technology ventures.

His latest business venture - a pan-European taxi service aimed at corporate customers called Capital Route - has an arrangement with the British leasing firm Lombard and the Royal Bank of Scotland to finance expansion.

The company launched its service last week in London with a fleet of 15 cars and plans to create a fleet of 200 cars in 26 cities in Europe, says Mr Ganley.

"This service will enable people to get exactly the same standard of service whether they are in London or Paris," he says. "We use the latest technology."

Mr Ganley will manage development of the business from his base in Galway, where he is an active member of the Galway Chamber of Commerce. He is also well-known locally for donating funds to Fianna Fáil and providing hospitality at the races.

His support for Fianna Fáil was born out of a sense of being a nationalist, says Mr Ganley, who still retains a distinctive London accent. But he has now stopped donating funds to the party.

"Fianna Fáil don't need that kind of help now. The great thing about being in power is that it is easy to raise money. They don't need guys like me when they are in power. But if times got tough then I'd look at the situation."

Mr Ganley's name has also popped up in the Flood tribunal with regard to dealings with the disgraced former Fianna Fáil TD Mr Liam Lawlor. "Lawlor worked as a consultant to us in Eastern Europe a few years back. Other than that we have had no dealings with him," says Mr Ganley.

A losing bidder in the competition for the second mobile phone licence in the Republic in 1995, Mr Ganley has not lost interest in that contest or the mobile world.

He has filed a law suit for damages in the High Court seeking to benefit from any future judgement by the Moriarty tribunal that the award of the licence to the Esat Group was corrupted.

"We have a fiduciary duty to shareholders, says Mr Ganley, who admits he has no idea if the award process was corrupted.

Recently, he emerged as part of a consortium called Liberty Mobile in Iraq with Lucent and local partners. The firm did not win a licence in the first round of auctions but Mr Ganley has not lost hope that it may persuade the US administration to licence a network based on CDMA technology - the US mobile standard.

Moving from turf seller in Galway to mobile guru in Baghdad seems quite a leap, but who could write off the Irish Pimpernel?