Jim Barry, the chief executive of infrastructure operator NTR, tellsUna McCaffrey that the company has undergone a pretty dramatic changesince his arrival

It is hard to get Monopoly out of your mind when having a chat with Jim Barry, the affable chief executive of infrastructure operator NTR.

You find your mind's eye skimming around the board game's various streets and stations and settling on the four utility squares. The next step is working out which of the power or water sectors represented on the board has yet to enter the NTR portfolio. Gas has yet to make it in, but hey, it's not because the NTR boys haven't thought of it. And it is also worth remembering that they have one up on Monopoly, with their tremendously reliable roads operations.

Earlier this week, NTR reported after-tax profits of €14.3 million on turnover of €211 million, with about 17 per cent of the revenue drawn from tolls at the East and West Link bridges in Dublin.

Just four years earlier, profits stood at about the same level, but turnover was dramatically lower at €28 million. At that stage, the two toll bridges encompassed NTR's entire business.

Fast forward to the present day and the old reliable bridges have been joined by waste, water, electricity and, most recently, internet. Time for Monopoly to enter the modern age, perhaps.

The reason for the diversification looks simple enough. The toll contracts that have been so lucrative for NTR for about two decades now have a finite life, with the West Link deal due to expire in 2020 and the East Link in 2015. While the operation of the bridges after that date is far from being settled, it has been clear for a while that NTR's future shape and structure needed to be arranged well in advance of it being a fait accompli.

Matters of destiny came to a head, says Mr Barry, in 1998, just after he joined NTR (then National Toll Roads) in a short-term project management capacity. His first job was to look at the merits of leading the development of a ring road motorway around the capital.

In the end, the project "dissipated", but Mr Barry sees it as a fine example of how NTR at that time was thinking "creatively".

He describes the firm's founder, Mr Tom Roche senior, previously a chief executive of CRH, as "the foremost entrepreneur of his generation". Over the years, notions hatched at the company but ultimately left undeveloped have included a gas project, a car park under St Stephen's Green and a different sort of port tunnel for Dublin.

By the late 1990s, it was clear that toll roads, while appealing in their simplicity, would not provide the growth trajectory that executives thought could be there for the taking. There were three options in Mr Barry's view: NTR could securitise its assets and return funds to shareholders, it could stay in toll roads but try to broaden that scope internationally or it could stay in Ireland and cast its net beyond toll roads.

After a five-month inquiry, the latter strategy was chosen and a partnership with Mr John Gallagher in waste disposal firm Celtic Waste followed in 1999 for €6.3 million.

Later that year, NTR moved into another utility by taking a controlling 51 per cent stake in Mr Eddie O'Connor's renewable wind energy venture Airtricity (then Eirtricity) for about £10 million. The firm is now worth more than €125 million.

Celtic Waste then became Celtic Utilities and NTR bought out Mr Gallagher with a mixture of cash, shares and loan notes to reach an 88.5 per cent shareholding. This brought with it a 38.45 per cent interest in Celtic Anglian Water, another utility.

Finally, last year, NTR stretched the utility tag even further by setting up wireless internet services provider Irish Broadband. The NTR name, says Mr Barry, adds the necessary "financial credibility" to all of its ventures.

He acknowledges that the firm has seen "fairly dramatic change" since his arrival, accepting as well that the pace of the change might not have been so fast had NTR satisfied some pundits and taken a stock-market listing.

"The public market has a very short-term horizon. Not facing that whole glare has helped us to diversify and restructure."

But Mr Barry says that, while NTR is not a public company, it acts like one in most aspects of its operations. Results are presented twice yearly, accounts meet stock exchange requirements and about 44 per cent of the shares are held by institutions.

The firm's shares are even traded on an unofficial "grey market", operated by Davy Stockbrokers, although Mr Barry says people need to be "very persistent" before they will get the opportunity to buy in.

Those who have managed it will be content with their lot - as well as receiving hefty dividends each year, NTR has also rewarded them with a share price moving from €7.20 to €12.00 over the past two years.

Just 5 per cent of stock has changed hands within the past 12 months (bought by wealthy private individuals), with the founding Roche family still holding a 38 per cent stake. Other shareholders include fund managers such as Bank of Ireland Asset Management and Standard Life.

"We have no plans to list within the next two or three years - there's just so much activity," says Mr Barry, quickly adding that the firm has an "open mind" on both the option of listing as a group or floating off one or two of its very discrete businesses.

He says the firm is happy with its current configuration, joking that it seems to have already tapped into almost every utility in existence. Instead, the focus will be on business development, at home and in the UK (through water and waste) and the US (through Airtricity).

While the international side of the business is growing, Mr Barry says the domestic market will remain NTR's most important for some time to come. Which brings us back to roads and NTR's plan to maintain its presence in the area.

In July 2000, NTR joined Spanish civil engineer and toll operator Dragados and Dutch contracting group HBG Ascon to bid for road-related public-private partnerships (PPPs) in the Republic. Four years on, and after much tendering, planning and expensive advice, the Celtic Roads Group consortium has won just one contract: to build and operate the Dundalk western bypass for 30 years. The €160 million investment, while a welcome coup for NTR and its partners, could also be viewed as an opportunity too long in the making.

Mr Barry acknowledges the PPP process could have been more efficient over the years. He believes the political commitment to it is not to be doubted but says the issue is more about "the system following through".

Whatever the landscape, it is clear that NTR is determined to remain heavily involved in roads.

"We'll be around, competing for whatever," says Mr Barry, pointing in the short term to the proposed Waterford bypass. He says an earlier NTR proposal to upgrade the M50 in return for an extension of existing tolling contracts has been placed on the backburner, with the State more likely to go for a traditional procurement contract.

As for the National Development Plan, Mr Barry says "you can't fault it for ambition", but adds that there were always doubts in the industry on how quickly it could be achieved. Still, he says: "That kind of ambition is needed."

And of course he is no stranger to ambition - at age 37 he is unusually young in having reached the top spot in such a large company.

A proud Corkman, Mr Barry began his career in Morgan Stanley in London where he joined the mergers and acquisitions (M&A) team in 1989.

He describes the M&A experience as "phenomenal", urging any "ambitious business studies graduate" to consider a similar career move. "The stuff sticks with you," he says, recalling both the intense pressure and the huge fun attached to life as a young corporate financier in the heady London of the 1990s.

Three years with Morgan Stanley was enough for Mr Barry, with a new departure coming in an MBA at Harvard University. He left the US in 1994 and joined global strategy firm Bain and Co in London, where he spentfour years on company re-engineerings, corporate strategy, salesforce optimisation and all the rest with firms such as Guinness and Dell.

Towards the end of his tenure at Bain, Mr Barry faced the law of diminishing returns and found he was learning less as time progressed. "I was very much a jack of all trades at that stage so I was very flexible. I also knew that I wanted to be a manager and that I wanted to get back to Ireland."

That move worked out and, just a short while later, he was appointed NTR supreme leader. But for how long will the job satisfy his almost palpable ambition?

"I will stay on for as long as it is challenging and exciting," he replies with characteristic measure and diplomacy.