SEAN Mulryan, the founder of Ballymore, is the latest developer to go East. The Roscommon-born businessman has been surveying the property markets in India, China and Vietnam and along his travels he met a Thai monk who presented him with a string bracelet which he now wears on his wrist.

Mulryan has plenty on his plate even before looking at Asia and in a rare interview this week with the Financial Times he disclosed that Ballymore has no less than 52 sites in the pipeline, 32 of them in the UK. These include vast tracts in London's Docklands where Mulryan is gearing to cash in on the residential market in the run up to the Olympic Games. Bracelet aside, Mulryan hasn't lost the run of himself since he launched his company in 1982 on the proceeds of selling his house, his car and his wife's car to finance his first development. The FT describes him as a "serious property tycoon who still controls a fast growing company". Mulryan does not dismiss the idea of a flotation, but he seems unenthusiastic, according to the London paper. Apart from anything else, he enjoys the benefit of private ownership, which means no one knows what his total assets are. At any rate he's not yet ready to join the monks.