This week, two men who make bread for a living found themselves on the receiving end of an awful lot of dough. Ronan McNamee and Dr Pat Loughrey, of Cuisine de France baguette fame, each bagged £20 million when their company was acquired by IAWS, the Irish agrifood group, for £51 million.
They are not alone. Should McNamee and Loughrey require advice on how to adapt to their elevated financial status, there are many other nouveau millionaires waiting to take their call.
Ten years ago it was a much more exclusive club. Now fledgling software manufacturers, telecommunications companies and even newspaper proprietors are among those crossing the 1m threshold at the rate of three a week.
As fast as you can say Celtic Tiger, the new breed of financial felines are profiting in massive numbers from the sale, expansion or stockmarket flotation of their businesses.
Take the founders of Irish telecommunications group, Aldiscon, bought out two months ago by UK company, Logica, a move which led to the creation of four millionaires. Or the top brass at CBT Systems, a software company of little importance in 1992 that created three millionaires when floated on the US Based Nasdaq market.
Carol Moffett netted a cool £11 million when Monaghan-based Moffett Engineering was bought out two weeks ago. David McKenna of Marlborough International, a former plumber from Tallaght, Co Dublin, stands to gain £4 million when the company is floated on the Dublin and London exchanges.
The list goes on. Damien Kiberd, Barbara Nugent and Ailleen O'Toole became millionaires when The Sunday Business Post was purchased by Trinity International Holdings in August. Businessmen Sean Melly, Bernard Somers and Liam Booth will between them net £14 million when the company is purchased by US company, WorldCom.
If the folk at Cuisine de France really want to know how to handle their new-found wealth they should go straight (do not pass go, do collect several million pounds) to Chris Horn, managing director of Dublin-based, IONA technologies. More than 10 new millionaires have been created there since the company went public in January this year.
Horn, whose worth on paper is more than £270 million, does not behave like a man of such enormous wealth. "Life continues," is his comment on how the money has affected him. He still lives in the same three-bedroomed semi in Shankill, Co Dublin, with his wife and four young children. Holidays have amounted to snatched weekends at home rather than extravagant jaunts abroad. But there are some indulgences.
"I bought a second car," he admits sheepishly. "A Mazda 323."
It is business as usual too for John O'Loughlin, managing director and co-founder of Qualceram, the only manufacturer of vitreous china bathroom suites in Ireland. The company was set up 10 years ago when the country was wallowing in recession.
THE three founders of the Wicklow-based company became millionaires when it began trading on the London and Dublin markets last May.
"There was no major culture change," says O'Loughlin. "It hasn't affected the way we work. As far as the individuals are concerned there is still the same goal." Some people are making their millions by considerably less taxing methods. In a week when a Killiney house went under the hammer for £2.3 million, it is not surprising that rocketing property prices are creating new Irish millionaires every year. Inheritance accounts for up to 10 new millionaires a year and the same number of farmers are elevated annually through increases in land value.
For those without rich relatives, prime property or lucrative land, there is still another way. Since 1988, a lucky 78 millionaires have been created by playing the Lotto.
