In July 2002, the duo took their unloved Howard Holdings business off the market in an £11m deal backed by Kingspan director Brendan Murtagh. Three-and-a-half years on, the business is flying.

"Property development is not a good vehicle for a public company, " says Gormley, who is chairman of Howard Holdings. While the market looks for consistent growth in profits, the cycle for a developer can be very different.

Howard Holdings, which hit the headlines 10 days ago when it bought Coventry Airport, has a 2bn development programme under way and owns assets worth about 1bn, according to Gormley.

Howard is currently active in Ireland, Britain, South Africa, Spain, Germany and Poland and is now planning to build a pan-European regional airport business.

Since taking the business private, Gormley and his business partner, Coughlan, who is the firm's chief executive, have focused on mixed-use urban regeneration schemes and have been buying up aging assets with an eye on major redevelopment opportunities, as well as working on several greenfield projects.

Gormley is a an accountant and oversees the financial aspects of the developments, while Coughlan has a background in engineering.

Coughlan, Gormley and Murtagh each own about 30% of the business with the remainder held by Howard's financial controller, Brian Madden.

The four largest developments being undertaken by the company are in Leeds, Cape Town, Croydon and Cork. Development activities in these four cities have a total value of about 1bn, says Gormley.

The various projects in these four cities fit neatly into Howard's core strategy of mixed-use developments that have a regeneration aspect.

The company typically brings in different partners for each development as this spreads the risk.

The airport move might seem left of field somewhat, but not the way Gormley and Coughlan see it. Gormley said Coventry airport was an underperforming property with an existing income stream which is the same as many other assets owned by the firm. The Irish company will work the property side of things . . . the airport site is 400 acres . . . and its US partner Convergence-AFCO Holdings will manage the airport.

"There are 10 million people within 26 miles of Coventry airport, which is twice the population of Ireland, so clearly there's enormous potential, " Gormley said.

Officially the joint venture paid "more than £10m" for the airport, but it is thought that the price was significantly above the £10m figure.

The new owners will invest up to £50m in the airport over the next three to four years, according to Gormley. He said Howard plans to acquire a network of up to 10 regional airports in Europe over the next three years. This will be a separate business that could eventually be spun off.

"It [the company's interest in airports] was triggered by an opportunity brought to us.

Airports look very interesting, as clearly there is going to be a huge growth in air traffic."

In Cork, Howard owns Wilton shopping centre, which it bought in tandem with Joe O'Donovan for 150m, and is eyeing a possible 200m redevelopment.

The company also completed the 130m Lapps Quay redevelopment in Cork last year. It includes almost 7,000 square metres of office space, a new Clarion Hotel, as well as retail, car parking and a new riverside boardwalk.

Howard Holdings is also spearheading a major docklands development in Cork, which could eventually see 400 acres of land beside the Lee transformed into a new city district with 6,000 new homes, offices, retail and leisure activities.

"This could double the size of the city, " said Gormley. He added that Cork was very well positioned for a major expansion as the infrastructure was already in place. "In Dublin you had the development and the infrastructure had to catch up, but Cork already has the Lee Tunnel and the whole road network has been tremendously planned."

Howard Holdings only controls about 15% of the overall site . . . it bought the 10-acre former Ford site for 25m last month and also owns a couple of other parcels of land nearby . . . but has produced a master plan for the whole area and is working with other landowners and the local authority to move the project forward.

In Britain, the company is working on a redevelopment of the huge Whitgift shopping centre in Croydon, having bought a 50% stake in the centre last year for 330m.

That deal was a joint venture with Anglo Irish Bank, which has such a good relationship with Howard Holdings that bank chairman Sean FitzPatrick pops up a couple of times on its corporate video.

Whitgift, which covers a 12-acre site, was once Britain's largest shopping centre and Gormley and his team have big plans to make the shopping centre the cornerstone of a redevelopment of the south London suburb.

"It's the whole heart of Croydon and we'll be doubling the size of it."

Howard is also working on a new 85m tower block in Croydon and Gormley reckons the suburb's excellent transport links mean it is well placed for growth.

The South Africa business, Eurocape, is an associate company owned by Howard Holdings and solicitor David Coleman of Lavelle Coleman, who is also part of the Precinct consortium that owns the Gresham Hotel chain.

Eurocape is redeveloping three city blocks in central Cape Town and is midway through a 185m scheme at Mandela Rhodes Place, which is the centre point of the city's old town. The project is backed by Eurocape as well as six wealthy Irish investors, and a coterie of clients assembled by Dublin accountants BDO Simpson Xavier.

Gormley and Coughlan were attracted to South Africa by the fact that they feel it is easier to operate there than in many emerging economies in central Europe. The legal rules governing property are based on the British system, business is conducted in English and South Africa is in the same time zone as Ireland.

In tandem with its Cape Town investment, Howard Holdings is also setting up the Saint Patrick's Trust, a new charity that will benefit a range of projects in South Africa.