Good news for Mr Joe Higgins, the low-profile Galway entrepreneur who sold his family engineering company to the British group Rubicon for an initial £25 million. Mr Higgins got £20 million up front and £5 million worth of Rubicon shares, and has since built up his stake in Rubicon to more than 5 per cent after astutely exercising share options when the Rubicon share price hit a 113p sterling floor late last year.

Now the American giant Applied Power has made an agreed bid for Rubicon at 235p sterling a share, a bid that values Rubicon at £207 million sterling and Mr Higgins's stake at £10.l6 million sterling or almost £12.5 million.

If that wasn't enough, Rubicon's buyout deal with Mr Higgins provides for earn-out payments up to £75 million over five years - subject of course to profit targets being met, although Rubicon chairman Mr Tim Wightman said at the time that the earn-out cap was included for stock exchange reasons and that Mr Higgins's eventual earn-out would be substantially less than £75 million. At that level, what's a few million.