It was never supposed to end this way. Late last Friday afternoon, the High Court appointed a liquidator to the company behind First Equity Group, an Irish investment firm that worked on projects worth more than €3 billion.

More than 400 investors - mainly wealthy Irish people - had ploughed millions of euro into the group, which operated through a complex series of companies. Their money was invested in everything from apartments in Beverly Hills to villas in France and Italy and a €500 million ski resort in Suffolk.

Many of the projects have stalled and, this weekend, those investors are trying to assess if they will get any of their money back. For the majority of them, the answer will be no.

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