Seán Fitzpatrick is set to retire and hopes to do something totally different, after spending most of his career building up the bank, writes Siobhán Creaton, Finance Correspondent.

It is likely that this morning's annual general meeting of Anglo Irish Bank's shareholders will be the last to be addressed by Seán FitzPatrick. The 55-year-old accountant, who has been leading Anglo Irish's charge for the past 22 years, has said he will hang up his boots at the end of this year or in early 2005.

"I want to change. This is no surprise. I didn't want to run Anglo until I was 60. I want to get out and do something else before I get too old."

He says he has no interest in taking another full-time executive role and will do things that interest him.

Mr FitzPatrick, a keen golfer, is looking at getting involved in a golf club in Hungary with a few other people and says he wouldn't mind a stint as a barrister - he certainly doesn't want to become a professional non-executive director.

He is likely to remain on the board at Anglo Irish, although he insists this has still to be agreed, and believes that his successor will come from within the existing management team.

"We have the luxury of having a lot of talented people in the bank that could do the job and do it well. I would be very surprised if it wasn't an internal candidate.

"The investment institutions in particular would be driving that agenda as well and have met with some of the directors. They would feel comfortable that there is talent in here as well.

"It would be very difficult for someone from the outside to come in and get immersed in our culture."

The front-runner for the chief executive role is chief operations officer Mr Tiarnan O'Mahony, although Mr FitzPatrick says he will play no part in the decision.

Anglo Irish has been a huge part of his life. He left a short career as a chartered accountant to move into the world of banking and got his first break managing "little" Anglo Irish, which had eight staff.

"We had red ledgers that we used to look at on a daily basis. Every Monday, myself and Peter Killen would look at them and shout across to each other whether we would do this loan or another. We were talking about loans of about £5,000 and £10,000. Progress was when we got two ledgers, one from A-M and another for N-Z, then three, and then we moved to computers. We grew by trying to survive."

The bank identified a gap between what finance houses and investment banks were offering, and concentrated on building a niche bank. It targeted the customers of the much bigger banks but was only interested in lending them money for business ventures.

"It took a long time to become clear that we had something genuine to offer."

None of the Irish fund management institutions would buy Anglo Irish shares.

"The stock was too small and I think they thought the market was too crowded and that we weren't going to go anywhere. We built a customer deposit base and had a very solid base but we were much slower in getting off the ground. We pounded the streets of London and have been doing that all over the world ever since," he says.

Its competitors were scathing about the bank, particularly during the currency crisis in the early 1990s, when thousands of individuals took funds out of AIB and Bank of Ireland and deposited them at Anglo Irish, which was offering interest rates far in excess of anyone else.

"A lot of money came out of their branches and their general managers were telling customers that if Anglo was paying that amount of interest then it was bound to go bust. Those were times of sleepless nights," Mr FitzPatrick says.

"I wasn't resentful. We just needed to keep the head down and fight it. Banks weren't interested in us. They never seriously looked at us. They said these guys are going to fall apart. But we didn't and we became significant players. In lots of ways they allowed us to grow because they never took us seriously enough."

Its focused strategy meant that Anglo Irish often ended up doing the biggest amount of business with customers of the bigger banks. It concentrated on providing them with a better service although not necessarily a cheaper rate of interest.

"We were better at understanding their business and gave them quick decisions. The other banks are very robust competitors and it's not been easy for us, but when people started dealing with us for higher-value lending, we left the others standing."

In 2003, the bank reported a 33 per cent rise in profits to €347 million that was largely driven by huge growth in lending in Ireland and the UK. It is a very lean and efficient bank with a cost-to-income ratio of 30 per cent.

"That means that for every €100 that comes in the door, €70 goes to the bottom line. Because of that low cost ratio and because we didn't have the branch network, we can pay better rates and are comfortably ahead of the bigger banks," Mr FitzPatrick explains.

The bank's operations in the Isle of Man have recently attracted some attention from the Revenue Commissioners as part of its investigation into offshore tax evasion. Mr FitzPatrick, like the other bank chiefs, has met the tax collection agency and has agreed to write to its customers to explain that a full investigation of the Irish end of that business will begin in the next few months. He suggests that this problem is not as large as people might think.

Mr FitzPatrick says the massive DIRT tax evasion scandal and other charges have been very damaging for Irish financial institutions and believes the sector has much work to in terms of repairing its public image.

"We are the most powerful industry in terms of the contribution we make to the business community and we are huge employers, yet we don't seem to be able to speak in a unified voice to the Government or to the general public. Everywhere we turn we are criticised."

Shareholders aren't criticising Anglo Irish or Mr FitzPatrick, particularly now that the bank's share price has overtaken AIB and Bank of Ireland's. Stockbrokers are still telling investors to buy the stock, suggesting there is even further upside in the stock.

Mr FitzPatrick says he doesn't know the potential for the share price but that the bank can certainly continue to deliver strong earnings over the next couple of years.

"That's not to say we don't have bad debts but the incidence has slowed down. With very low interest rates people can afford to make repayments and want to invest."

He believes the gravest threat to the bank would be a sudden movement in interest rates, which could do "serious damage", but he stresses that the outlook is benign.

Anglo Irish's biggest challenge is to maintain its focus and to continue to provide the same service to its customers, he says.

"Our people are no brighter than those in AIB or Bank of Ireland. It's really about keeping people. There are a lot of millionaires in this bank and so it's really a case of pointing them out and saying 'this is what has happened to them'. They are able to spend that money, send their kids to the best schools, live in a nice house, buy their big cars. They are held up as role models because it is possible for younger people to achieve that.

"It's not just about the money though. It's about pride and a professionalism."

Factfile

Name: Seán FitzPatrick

Age: 55

Family: Married to Triona, they have two sons and a daughter

Background: From Bray, Co Wicklow, he attended the Presentation College there and went on to qualify as a chartered accountant before joining Anglo Irish Bank.

Interests: Golf and rugby

Why he is in the news: He is preparing to relinquish his chief executive's role after 22 years at Anglo Irish Bank.