As he emerges from his offices near the harbour, a traffic warden is about to slap a ticket on his mature Mercedes. The ensuing conversation is quiet and cordial and after a moment the warden nods his head in acquiescence and closes the book.

O'Coineen has obviously just made a successful plea.

"Let's get out of here, " he says and we make our way towards the deserted seafront yacht club.

O'Coineen is a somewhat difficult man to make out. He has spoken before on 'how I made it' and even now he is plugging his latest book, The Unsinkable Entrepreneur, and while he chats freely about some of his projects, the minutiae is still somewhat elusive unless one trawls through the book.

Having tried his hand at a number of ventures in Ireland in the eighties, notably niche publishing, O'Coineen eventually found his way to the Czech Republic. Having been based there since 1993 he has built up a holding company, Kilcullen Kapital Partners, that encompasses an eclectic mix of businesses such as recruitment, asset management, mortgage lending, event management and telecommunications . . . the latter now a hands-off minority interest.

His latest project is an attempt to buy a state-owned Czech aircraft manufacturer, Aero Vodochody.

Heavily indebted to the tune of 300m, the company employs 1,700 people, but its vast site is just 15km from Prague and also incorporates a runway. That makes it an attractive proposition as a secondary Prague airport that could be of interest to low-cost carriers.

O'Coineen has attracted some heavy hitters to his consortium, including US aerospace firm Fairchild and New Zealand airport operator Infratil. But it is clear that even if the group wins the bid, it has a big challenge ahead.

"It needs a cultural upheaval, " he explains. "They start work at about eight o'clock [in Aero Vodochody] and finish at three in the afternoon." Aside from manufacturing training aircraft, the company also has parts contracts with firms such as Airbus and Sikorsky.

"We've already talked to one aircraft manufacturer that has given us orders for 35 aircraft [if the consortium takes control], " O'Coineen added, who declined to mention the company concerned.

"The attractiveness of this to them is the skills and relatively low cost labour available. If we go out and match those orders then it would increase the value of the manufacturing side." He points out that the consortium, which expects to invest roughly 130m in the site, would separate the aerospace element from the property front, hoping to create a business park and possibly a hotel at the site. Rousing the workers out of their Soviet-era work ethos may be a bit more difficult, but O'Coineen stresses that they are keen to change.

Meanwhile, the development would also neatly fit in with O'Coineen's other new venture: windfarms and turbine manufacture. He has become involved in a 60MW, 80m windfarm project in Hungary, which he says will be just the beginning of his foray into that sector.

"There's a top US wind turbine manufacturer that we would take a licence for in Europe, " he says, "and we're developing a specialisation in wind energy. The site in Hungary, which is due to become operational soon, is part of a bigger central European wind energy project that Kilcullen is organising the finance for. The funding is coming from OTP Bank in Hungary.

O'Coineen hopes the windfarm projects will eventually use turbines that could be manufactured at the Aero Vodochody facility. He says he is keen to focus his interests in that central European region, combining the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary, as he has had poor experiences trying to branch out into larger countries such as Poland, where he says everything needed to be micromanaged.

When it is suggested that some people think of him as being somewhat eccentric (he once rowed across the Atlantic in a semi-rigid inflatable craft), O'Coineen shrugs off the perception. His disparate business interests attract some curious attention from commentators who wonder how O'Coineen has done so well for himself. Just how well he might have done from a monetary point of view, you're not likely to find out. Asked how much he thinks he's worth, he immediately shies away from the question, saying he prefers to just concentrate on business, not his personal wealth, which is well within reason.

He has no obligation to divulge his own financial affairs, and it is obvious the question makes him uncomfortable.

"The fundamentals of all business is the same, " he says.

"The big step is to recognise what you don't know and what you don't understand and find people who do. You have to look at many, many things and then when you decide what you want to do, you have to focus on it. If you don't take a look at many things, then you won't find the one or two things that you want to focus on."

That focus has also brought Kilcullen Kapital to the stage where it has an asset management base worth 160m and also a property portfolio worth 140m under its umbrella.

O'Coineen is also waiting for a small payday from telecommunications firm Etel, run by entrepreneur Sean Melly and Dublin businessman Bernard Somers.

Kilcullen has a 1% stake in the firm, which operates in markets such as Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland and is expected to float on London's AIM market this year with a valuation of close to 100m.

O'Coineen says that despite having spent more than a decade expanding his interests in and around the Czech Republic, he still considers Ireland as home, while also calling himself a European.

He admits that he would like to spend more time devoted to his main pastime of yachting and he retains a heavy involvement in the sport.

It seems that O'Coineen would welcome some kind of recognition at home, where he has perhaps flown under the radar. He concedes that a longer term aim would be to sell some of his Czech interests and move back to Ireland.

Based on his ambitions in central Europe, however, that day may still be some time off.