Cormac O'Keeffe charts the rise and fall of a mercurial entrepreneurFRAN ROONEY paid the ultimate sacrifice yesterday in a desperate bid to save the future of the company he founded just five years ago. The young chief executive officer, just 44, resigned from Baltimore Technologies in order to pursue "other interests," including a post in an unnamed internet learning company.

But dealers and commentators believed he stepped down, or was pressurised to step down, in order to appease unhappy shareholders.

Moreover, they watched the value of their shares nosedive by more than 90% from a high of stg£15 in March 2000 to as low as 17p last week. His resignation as chief executive was received by an immediate rise in share value to 23p.

"It's been taken as positive news, marking the end of one chapter and opening up another for the company," said one analyst.

Paul Sanders, the company's finance director is to act as the company's interim CEO until the firm finds a permanent successor to Rooney.

Speculation is rife that the Irish internet security company may now be ripe for a merger.

It's a sad end to a sweet success story for Rooney. For years he could do no wrong.

Rooney bought the firm which was established in 1976, in 1996 for £300,000 with the backing of Irish financier Dermot Desmond, whom he had worked for.

Taking on the six existing staff, the company specialised in security products and services to allow companies develop secure systems for e-business, or commerce conducted through mobile and internet technology.

The company soon attracted major clients, including giants Hewlett Packard, Chase Manhattan, Citi, Amex, Visa and Mastercard.

Domestic and foreign government institutions, including the Irish Revenue Commissioners, the FBI, the CIA, the British Ministry for Defence, also signed up.

In October 1999, Baltimore was floated on the Nasdaq index in New York, where dealing got off to a flying start. Rooney himself sold 150,000 shares, pocketing $3.7million. Baltimore rode on the crest of the hyper dot.com wave, sending its share value to the dizzy heights of stg£15.

The company's runaway success landed it a prestigious place in the elite FTSE100 index of top companies on the London market.

Baltimore was now the darling of the stock market and icon for home-grown internet companies, with a workforce, both here and abroad, of 1,400.

In May, eyebrows were raised when Rooney sold almost 10% of his shareholdings, pocketing £5.8m.

Reports circulated that computer software giant Microsoft was interested in taking over the company.

However, the unstable dot.com bubble had to burst and it did.

Baltimore shares fell to stg£3.09 by February 2001. March 2001, was a month Baltimore bosses would care not to remember.

The London Stock Exchange forced Baltimore to issue an emergency trading statement after Rooney gave details of current trading to select analysts at a Dublin briefing.

Baltimore was forced to issue a general statement saying forecast revenues could fall to stg£25m.

Negative media publicity followed and Baltimore experienced problems closing contracts with clients. At the same time, Rooney's pay package more than doubled to stg£454,000.

Baltimore's cost base was estimated to be stg£150m with cash reserves of just £54m. Staff account for some 80% of the costs. In July, Baltimore announced more job losses, likely to be another 250, following the layoffs in May.

Analysts were unimpressed by an announcement two weeks ago of six "new" major contracts, which actually turned out to be old contracts.

Over the last week, share prices fell to their lowest at 17p.

Analysts will now keep eyes peeled on what Baltimore does over the coming weeks, to see if the potential for recovery is there.