Well, it finally pulled it off. Drinks and snacks group C&C floated on the Irish Stock Exchange this week - its third attempt. The 150-year-old business floated 60 per cent of its equity, raising €400 million.

The company - best known for brands such as Bulmer's Cider, Club soft drinks and Tayto crisps - was particularly unlucky when it came to achieving its long-held ambition to go to market. In July 2002, 36 hours before it was due to float, C&C pulled its flotation as the market was still drifting in the doldrums in the wake of the technology bubble collapse.

This was the second time its fingers had been burnt on a flotation attempt. It had originally planned to go in 1998 but dropped it when problems in the original Asian tiger economies sparked another period of market turmoil.

Even last week looked like another near miss, as the markets plunged on Monday as oil prices scaled new heights. However, equities made a good recovery and C&C went ahead, with a price of €2.26 - the lower end of its range.

For chairman and former long-standing chief executive Mr Tony O'Brien it was a case of mission accomplished. C&C is now master of its destiny, at least as far as that coincides with the interests of shareholders.

Mr O'Brien believes that C&C has the potential to develop into a company on the scale of Kerry Group or even CRH (which he also chairs).

C&C's pitch to investors was based around its "proven resilience" - its ability to deliver profits in good and bad times - and what it promises will be a progressive dividend policy.

However, Mr O'Brien acknowledges that its performance is linked to the economy. The amount of cider and crisps that people buy is linked to disposable income and confidence that they will have plenty of cash for future boozing and snacking.

He sees future growth coming from two sources - organic and acquisition.

"We see the economy at the moment picking up. Growth this year is likely to be 4-4.5 per cent," he says. "We see growth coming from this organic uplift in Ireland... In the past, acquired growth gave us an nice uplift as well. We were always out there buying bolt-on companies."

So will C&C eventually adopt CRH's approach of staying permanently on the acquisition trail?

"We have our own acquisition team in place already. It's been there for a while... In the short term, it's going to be more organic growth than acquired growth."

C&C has already stuck its toe into the international market with Italian company Babero, which specialises in sparkling wines and similar products. C&C sold Babero last year, realising €150 million, which it used to reduce debt.

At the other side of the equation, there is the company's ability to deliver on its commitment to paying shareholders a good dividend. Its offer document anticipates that earnings before write offs and tax will be twice its full-year dividend. The nature of its business means that the company generates a lot of cash, somewhere around 80 per cent of earnings, and Mr O'Brien says this will make it possible to pay good dividends.

Since its foundation in the 1850s by Thomas Cantrell and Henry Cochrane, it has been through various changes of ownership. In 1968, Guinness, then owner of Cantrell & Cochrane, and Allied Breweries (subsequently Allied Domecq), merged their Irish soft drinks businesses to form C&C.

In 1998, Allied Domecq acquired all of the company. The following year, venture capital group BC partners and the company's management completed a successful leveraged buy out of the group. They still hold 40 per cent of the equity and are locked in for six months to a year.

The company has also changed in other ways. When Mr O'Brien took over as chief executive in 1980, it had operating profits of a little less than €5 million. In the year ended on February 29th, 2004, this stood at €128 million, when it was classed as operating earnings before interest, tax and amortisation (EBITA).

During that period, C&C's business has also changed from soft drinks to alcoholic drinks, which accounted for two-thirds of its €415.7 million turnover in the year ended in February. Its pre-tax profit in that period stood at €125.5 million.

The company produces a range of Irish brands and sells them to pubs and retailers. It also distributes a range of wines and the Pepsi and 7-Up brands. It exports many of its Irish products, including Tullamore Dew, Carolan's and Ballygowan, to 80 countries, with strong sales in Europe and the US.

In the Republic, it is the market leader in cider, selling 59 million litres of Bulmer's last year. It holds a similar position in mineral water with Ballygowan, which sold 55 million litres, and Club Orange, selling 44 million litres.

Mr O'Brien says that Bulmers is the anchor brand and its most important channel is the pub, which accounts for about 40 per cent of sales. At the same time, he points out that, through its various products, C&C has something on the shelves of virtually every retail premise in the State.

The big focus, according to Mr O'Brien, is on building brands.

"We spend about €50 million a year on above-the-line marketing," he says. The approach has always been to "fish where the fish are" - that is, to identify consumer tastes and match them.

He points out that the company successfully did this with mineral water and subsequently wine in the 1990s. Last year it also moved into the growing sports and energy drinks market with a new Club brand.

But it has not all been plain sailing. The fortunes of Tayto, the potato crisp manufacturer it bought four years ago, have been blighted almost since that point.

Last year, the company laid off 160 employees and contracted out some production to Largo Foods, producer of competing brands Perri and Hunky Dory.

However, Largo was not the main culprit. British invader Walkers targeted the Republic with a tailored marketing campaign fronted by Gary Lineker. Walkers has 16 per cent of the market - three-quarters of this came from Tayto, which holds 33 per cent of the Irish market.

"When we bought Tayto... we knew that it needed a certain amount of refurbishment.

"We've made sweeping changes, a lot of modernisation and I have no doubt we have wiped the smile off Walkers' face. There's no more erosion of market share and we've clawed back share."

However, the problems led to ongoing speculation that C&C was actively trying to sell Tayto and, as recently as last week, the rumour mill was again rumbling.

Mr O'Brien is adamant that this is not going to happen. "We are not going to sell it, the rot has stopped," he says.