Q&A Sir Anthony O'Reilly

By Bill Saporito

The ketchup company was top-shelf when he left in 1998 and headed home. Now, while the world invests in microchips, wireless and broadband, Anthony O'Reilly, 70, has created Ireland's biggest fortune from sand (Waterford Wedgwood), landline phones (Eircom) and print (Independent News & Media). He spoke with TIME's Bill Saporito about what drives his counterintuitive choices.

You run Independent News & Media, which has interests in newspapers in Ireland, England, India and Africa. Isn't print dead?

In a time-starved world, a brilliant newspaper is a very cheap way to make money. If it's luminous, it's well put together, it's organized, you can, in half an hour, get from that what you would spend six hours from the Internet doing. The newspaper industry is growing, quite slowly, but it is growing.

But how can newspapers hold off the Internet onslaught?

If you look at it, you'll find that a great deal of the Internet growth has come through up-selling by newspapers of a wide range of their product. That's why they're equipped to go after the three major areas in which they are under threat: cars, houses and jobs. Look up PropertyNews.com which is the largest property site here, with 11 billion hits per month, more than the BBC--the biggest thing right now in Ireland. It's got 20,000 properties on it. It's the most advanced site of its type, and we bought it yesterday. So we are pursuing the parallel path because we know the region.

So what drives your selection?

We are location indifferent, we are language indifferent, and we are platform indifferent. It's markets that matter. We are going to be threatened by the advent of broadband. In South Africa, it will be five, 10 years before they have urban broadband, and so one of our really amazing growth products in South Africa is our Zulu paper, which had a 25,000 circulation last year, up to 105,000 this year.

Speaking of dead, you bought Eircom, Ireland's landline business, with George Soros.

It's not dead because you still need it for broadband, but it's dead so far as a growth vehicle for voice is concerned. And you know, it would be a 3% to 4% gradual decline, and you can do everything with your mobile, can't you? You're going to shave with your mobile next. Soros and I made quite a bit of money, so we can't complain. My job is to get them back into mobile.

You bought great Irish brands in Waterford Wedgwood, but it's been a dodgy business. Is there any hope?

In 2000, it made $125 million of operating income, and it has been in loss ever since. Why? Globalization. This is the biggest tabletop company in the world. We've got fantastic brands. Just to humor you, we've got No. 1 Waterford, No. 2 Wedgwood, No. 3 Royal Doulton; the subbrands, you've got Versace and Bulgari and Jasper Conran and Emeril Lagasse. And we have just signed up with Robert Mondavi, so we will have a completely different type of Waterford. Waterford Wedgwood will be a very profitable business in eight to 12 months.

It's sort of a strange combination to be in tabletops and newsprint. What is the common denominator? That's the question. There is enormous loyalty to regional brands in the newspaper business; there is enormous loyalty to brands in the tabletop business. Brands protect you from becoming a commodity. So avoid commoditization at all costs. And that is the common thread to all of those.