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Sean Mulryan and family

Mulryan, 52, is a man in the right place at the right time. Last year he was a serious contender with good form and £234m in assets; thanks to his investment in east London property, his assets have broken away from the pack and are going for gold. Whichever country comes out top of the medal count in the 2012 London Olympics, Mulryan is already set up to be a big winner, and puts this down to “lucky timing”. He began buying up East End sites more than a decade ago and his company, Ballymore Properties, is now developing homes and commercial properties on 60 acres of the lower Lea Valley, close to the Games site in Stratford. He has been described as one of the most successful Irish property players in recent years but Olympic dreams do not come cheap. Mulryan spent almost £1m promoting London as the host city and a further £750,000 on the celebrations in Trafalgar Square. A “self-confessed sports fanatic”, Mulryan was also named as a potential backer last year in an attempted buyout of Sunderland football club, but pulled out. He literally built his formidable financial empire with his own hands, leaving school to work as a bricklayer and stonemason. By 26 he had his own company, which expanded from building homes into commercial development. He now has tens of millions invested around Canary Wharf in London and has interests in other UK cities, as well as in eastern Europe, including Prague and Bratislava. He and his wife Bernadine have five children and Mulryan makes regular visits in his helicopter to see his 80-year-old mother, who lives in a Co Roscommon bungalow near where he was born. Although his interests include fishing and Gaelic football, his passion remains racing and he has his own stud farm. “I don’t know how many horses I own now. Somewhere between 50 and 100,” he says.