Developer continues to enjoy high life in US

It was one of the signature deals of the boom.

The 2005 purchase of the Jurys and Berkeley Court Hotels in Ballsbridge for €379m was to launch Dublin into the high-rise era. The hotels would be demolished to make way for a €1.5bn mixed development, centred around a 37 storey ‘diamond cut’ skyscraper.

The fact that the hotels continue to operate, albeit in the budget range, tells you all you need to know about the how the deal fared. But Sean Dunne — the man whose ambition drove this visionary project — gave every impression of having escaped the collapse of his empire unscathed.