On those few occasions when Paddy Kelly agreed to speak at public forums, he'd turn up wearing a tie and then take it off during the speech with a touch of dramatic flair. After all, the open shirt was one of his sartorial trademarks. In recent months though, the tie was very much in place as Kelly regularly walked from his office on Baggot Street in Dublin to meetings at Anglo Irish Bank's headquarters at St Stephen's Green.

It didn't work. Anglo decided last February to stop further drawings on a facility granted to him last year. In an affidavit last week, he admitted his liabilities exceeded his assets and he is now considering a bankruptcy arrangement.

The revelation came after businessman Hugh McGivern sought an order directing Kelly to provide a statement of his assets and liabilities inside and outside the jurisdiction after Kelly had failed to pay McGivern €131,000 in rents due as part of a settlement in a case related to the purchase of shares in the Irish franchise of ladies fashion retailer Mango.

Privately, Kelly had been open about his financial travails since the middle of last year.

Those private admissions became public reality last week as the court case forced him to admit his position.

Kelly, who was away last week and unavailable for comment, has been "fighting fires" for many months.

Thomas Read, the pub chain with which he was involved, went into examinership – after it was bought using a substantial amount of debt – as did Tulfarris House & Golf Resort in Co Wicklow, which hadn't even opened after refurbishment before it was put into examinership.

There have also been ongoing legal difficulties relating to a €1bn project in Sarasota, Florida, where Kelly is a partner.

The project envisaged a mixed-use development including a 45-storey building, but dropped the tower idea after the 11 September attacks. Buildings of about 20 storeys are now planned on the site, including hotels and condos, but the project has been subject to legal disputes and the Florida real estate market has collapsed.

He is also a shareholder in Pragelato near Turin in Italy, which was used as the former Winter Olympics village.

The company behind that development, Irish Italian Property Holdings (IIPH), is strike-off listed by the Companies Office. Its last filed accounts are for 2006 and show a deficit in shareholders' funds of more than €12.5m.

Other partners in the venture included Joe O'Reilly and the late Liam Maye of Castlethorn Construction, French-based investor Charles Fessell and Jane Tidey's Two Design Investments, according to IIPH's last filed annual return.

Partnerships are a feature of Kelly's business relationships. One of his favourite sayings is: "Team – together each of us achieves more".

The developer typically teamed up with a variety of other developers including the Flynn family, the McCormacks, John McCabe, car salesman Joe Linders and Niall J Mellon, among many others.

He also enjoyed giving people he saw as talented a slice of a business.

For example he lent Frankie Whelehan £80,000 interest-free for a stake in what became Choice Hotels, a loan which eventually made Whelehan a multi-millionaire.

Kelly's policy was that the general manager of each property should hold between 5% and 10% of the freehold in the hotel and also have an interest of up to 10% in the operating company.

If he were to enter a bankruptcy arrangement, however, it could have implications for some of his ventures.

"The real question is how he'll be able to unwind his deals with his partners. Can they buy him or the bank out? Presumably they can't access funding so how do they get their money back? The market for minority shares in businesses and buildings isn't there," said one industry source.

Kelly has been here before. In 1990 he and his wife Maureen were caught up when Lloyds of London called in its Names, which both of them were, to underwrite massive losses.

He had to sell his house at Shrewsbury Road in Dublin 4 and, in an interview last year, he said he ended up buying back his debt of £4.5m for about £300,000.

"I've been a millionaire twice in my life – once positive, once negative," he likes to say and on Eamon Dunphy's radio show he described the Lloyds episode as a "scratched knee".

Certainly it didn't seem to affect his social life too badly.

Legend has it that around that time he used to put Maureen in a taxi to the famous Le Coq Hardi restaurant and then cycle there himself, bicycle clips and all.

Kelly bounced back, and with customary brio, was not afraid to spend the money he had. He donated nearly €1m to Niall J Mellon's South African township fund, gave €250,000 to the National College of Ireland, and funds an Aids hospital in Uganda.

He has also been involved with Barretstown, cancer research company Biobank and the Daisychain foundation, which supports families with special needs, and he is patron of The Wellbeing Foundation which tries to improve mental health services in Ireland.

Kelly exasperated a lot of people last year when he said on Dunphy's show that Anglo Irish Bank had a lot of good and creative employees and that people would be surprised by how strong the bank was.

It was nationalised a few months later.

Less publicised however, was his call for a moratorium on house repossessions.

And even though he used to drive property advisers insane by refusing to say whether he would bid for something or not, he's genuinely liked in both property and social circles.

"There's a lot of developers that people wouldn't mind taking some pain but he's not one of them," said one senior industry source last week.

Kelly's Empire: Interests he Holds

» The former National Children's Hospital at Harcourt Street in Dublin, which is now an office block

» Office scheme under construction at Burlington Road in Dublin 4

» A planned 1,000-home development in Toronto, Canada

» The redevelopment of The Markets area of Dublin's inner city

» Retail units in Smithfield, Dublin

» A $1bn development in Florida

» The Thomas Read pub chain, which is in examinership

» Tulfarris House & Golf Resort in Wicklow, which is in examinership

» Fresh Supermarkets and Real Gourmet Burger

» Healthcare companies including Charter Medical Group and Synchrony

» The former Winter Olympics village in Turin, Italy

» Syndicated property company RQB and a similar US venture

» Bray Town Centre development

» Choice Hotels group

» Prem Group, which provides serviced offices and owns hotels

» The new O2 head office at Sir John Rogerson's Quay in Dublin

» National College of Ireland building

» Hotels in Atlanta

» Top-end hotel and resort operator Heuston Hospitality