Kelly Martin's appointment as chief executive may have surprised many but he claims he's in it for the long haul, writes Jane O'Sullivan, Markets Correspondent.

When Elan announced earlier this week that it had appointed Mr Kelly Martin to the role of chief executive, it took many by surprise.

Analysts and investors had expected Elan chairman Dr Garo Armen and the company's board to look to the pharmaceutical sector for a candidate to restore the troubled drugs company to full health.

Instead, they got Mr Martin, a 21-year veteran of US broker Merrill Lynch, prompting speculation that his task was to ready the company for sale or break-up rather than map out a long-term strategy.

But Mr Martin, in Dublin yesterday as part of a whirlwind tour of Elan's Irish operations, is adamant that he is in not in the job for the short-haul.

"If Elan wanted to package itself for sale it wouldn't need me," he says. "I'm here to do just the opposite. I wouldn't leave a 21-year career to come to a firm and sell it in six months' time."

Instead, he believes that Elan can get back on its feet and grow and prosper. "My own goal is not to sell the company but to execute the recovery plan, grow the company and position it for a very long lifetime."

He admits that when a mutual acquaintance of his and Dr Armen's first mentioned that Elan was looking for a chief executive some months ago, he had only a passing knowledge of the company. But he was also seeking a new opportunity after two decades at Merrill, "the only company I ever worked for, the only company I thought I'd ever work for," he says.

So he met Dr Armen in early September and things quickly progressed from there.

"I was given great opportunities at Merrill Lynch to run different businesses. I wanted an opportunity to apply those skills to something different," he says, adding that Elan fitted the bill.

He is also keen to stress that he is not a banker or a financial engineer but comes from an operational background.

"I would describe myself as an operating executive, comfortable with operating complexity, global complexity and comfortable with taking up the bits and pieces that hang together, or sort of hang together or don't," Mr Martin says.

His experience at Merrill Lynch was wide-ranging, including a three-year stint in Japan and an eight-year stint in London, a spell running the company's systems and technology business, and more recently, turning around both its debt market division and its non-US private banking business.

Such experience should stand him in good stead at Elan where he faces many challenges, not least the company's looming debt obligations. It must repay a $1 billion (€955 million) convertible bond by the end of this year, while in all it has liabilities of some $2.4 billion. But Mr Kelly remains undaunted and believes that Elan is already well positioned on the road to recovery.

"We are slaloming through the gates right now and the objective is to get down the hill. We are more than half way down the mountain," he says.

Elan is continuing to work on restructuring its liabilities and will focus closely on this over the next three months, he says.

Meanwhile, its asset disposal programme is moving faster than expected and the company expects to complete it by mid-year, six months ahead of schedule.

It also expects to raise more than the targeted $1.5 billion, leaving the balance sheet in "very solid shape," Mr Martin says.

As to the business itself, Mr Martin believes the vision outlined for it by Dr Armen and the board is "well articulated and correct". It will focus on the three key areas of neurology, pain and autoimmune diseases.

But investors, concerned that post-restructuring Elan will be but a shadow of its former self, will be interested to learn that Mr Martin is keen to hold onto assets beyond these core areas.

Assuming the company plans to sell off everything outside of the three key areas "would be a mistake because outside of those three areas that are the focus, there are some other things that are good businesses and growth opportunities. If we can hold on and keep some of those other assets, we will do that."

Aside from getting the company back on track, the other major obstacle in Mr Martin's path is the US's Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigation into the company's accounting practises. Elan has little to report on the inquiry except to say it has furnished the SEC with around one million pages of information.

"We will continue to have dialogue with them and it will run its course but it will take some time, mostly because the SEC is so backlogged," Mr Martin says.

He already has some first-hand experience of the recent accounting scandals in the US, having testified before the Senate earlier this year on Merrill Lynch's relationship with failed energy giant Enron. At the time, he told senators that "at no time did we engage in transactions that we thought were improper".

Merrill Lynch has also had, in the eyes of some, too close a relationship with Elan in the past.

Mr Martin says, however, that in his long tenure at Merrill Lynch, he never had any direct involvement with Elan.

"I was never an investment banker so I was never involved with Elan or frankly any other corporate institution for that matter," he says.

"My thoughts on Merrill Lynch or any other investment bank is that any relationship we have company to company has got to be at arm's length, has got to be balanced and appropriate and we need to use advisers that bring us expertise in certain areas for certain things and that doesn't always mean it's one person or the other."

Mr Martin has five children, aged between two and 12, and currently lives in New York.

He expects to spend the next year almost continuously on the road but then plans to base himself in San Diego, near the company's research and development operations. This has prompted speculation that the group is planning to shift its headquarters to the US from Ireland.

But Mr Martin, whose grandmother hailed from Cashel in Co Tipperary, says Elan's HQ is and will remain in Dublin.

The company's chief financial officer, its head of business development, its corporate secretary, its head of manufacturing and its treasury and human resources operations are all based in the Republic at present.

"A good percentage of those people will remain here. It's premature to say who might not remain here as I haven't had a chance to talk to all of them individually about this," he says.

As for its manufacturing facility in Athlone, Elan is looking at opportunities there, particularly whether it can use capacity there to service third parties.