Kevin McGeever, 68, is recovering in hospital in Mullingar. Count Westmeath. In the Irish economic boom years, he sold luxury homes in Dubai.
He was reported missing to police in Galway in June last year.
He was found dishevelled with a long beard and very long fingernails and had lost a lot of weight.
Mr McGeever was picked up on a country road near Ballinamore in County Leitrim on Tuesday night.
Sinn Féin Councillor Martin Kenny from Ballinamore, who knows the couple who found the man, said they had been driving home from Enniskillen when they came upon him on the road.
"They noticed something on the road and, at first, they thought it was a traffic cone, but he was wearing red trousers," he said.
"He looked dishevelled. He did not know what county he was in, what day it was, what month it was. They noticed he had no shoes."
Cllr Kenny said the man told the couple that some men had dropped him off in a van and he had been a long time in that van.
"They went to the local garda station and they got him tea and biscuits. He gobbled up the biscuits as he was ravenous so they got him some curry chips. They discovered he had been missing for the past eight months and that he was in fact an international high flyer. He was well spoken, intelligent and well educated."
Cllr Kenny said Mr McGeever was taken to hospital suffering from malnutrition and dehydration.
He said rumours that he had been abducted and that an insult had been carved on his head were speculation.
"As far as the scar carved on his head, there is no clear evidence of that," Cllr Kenny said.
Mr McKeever lives in a 3m euros (£2.58m) mansion. He has offices in Mullingar and owns a personal helicopter and a fleet of cars including a Porsche and two Hummers.
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