Billionaire Hungarian-born financier, George Soros, who controls a private equity fund which is backing Sir Tony O'Reilly's planned offer for Eircom's fixed-line business, is reputed to have made £1 billion (€1.27 billion) profit from speculating against sterling in 1992. Through a $10 billion (€8.85 billion) gamble against the British currency, he earned the title of "the man who broke the Bank of England" as he and his Quantum Fund helped to force sterling's exit from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism in a spectacular reversal of economic policy by the British government.

But a run of poor investment performance more recently saw Mr Soros (71), announcing last year that his fund management group would be restructured. Quantum, which at $8.24 billion was the Soros group's largest hedge fund, would be managed more conservatively to ensure "a more reliable stream of income" for his charitable activities. The latter include millions of dollars in donations to business schools and hospitals in his native Hungary, to scientific research in Russia and towards humanitarian relief in Bosnia.