An executive running companies once owned by one of Ireland’s richest men has been found at the side of a road near the Irish border after being abducted and assaulted in a “horrific attack”.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland believe Kevin Lunney, the chief operating officer of Quinn Industrial Holdings (QIH), was abducted near his home north of the border in Co Fermanagh and seriously assaulted before being dumped on a roadside in the Republic.

Lunney, 50, was found by local residents just before 9pm on Tuesday night with a broken leg and other non life-threatening injuries.

It is the latest in a series of incidents to have hit QIH in Co Cavan since the former billionaire and entrepreneur Seán Quinn lost control of his businesses under the weight of €2bn (£1.8bn) debts.

The building materials and packaging company said it feared that someone would be killed unless the violence, which the police believe is being conducted by those who remain loyal to Quinn, stopped.

DI Trevor Stevenson said: “We understand that the man was abducted from his home in Derrylin at around 6.40pm yesterday evening Tuesday 17 September, and was seriously assaulted before being left at the side of the road at Drumcoughill, Cornafean, Co Cavan. He was discovered by local residents just before 9pm and was brought to hospital with serious injuries to his face and leg.

“This was a horrific attack and we are liaising with our colleagues at An Garda Síochána.”

A QIH spokesman said Lunney’s car and an unknown car had been found ablaze near his home shortly before 7pm last night.

The chairman of QIH, Adrian Barden, said: “Kevin Lunney’s abduction and assault is an outrageous attack on a hardworking father of six children but also on his 830 colleagues at QIH and the wider community in the Cavan-Fermanagh region.

“For several hours last evening, Kevin’s wife, family and very many friends were left to contemplate the worst. Like many of his colleagues, I am frustrated and angry that more has not been done to protect Kevin, who will require some considerable time to recover from the very severe injuries sustained in this brutal attack.

“We have previously warned of the inevitability of serious injury and loss of life arising from these sustained and increasingly serious criminal attacks. We find it inexplicable that not a single arrest has been made north or south despite dozens of incidents.

“We are now calling for the police authorities north and south to act quickly and decisively to prevent an inevitable loss of life by bringing those responsible to justice.”

A Garda spokesperson said: “Gardaí and the PSNI are cooperating into the investigation of an incident that occurred in Fermanagh yesterday evening. A male is receiving medical treatment at a hospital in the Republic of Ireland.”

The gardaí believe a violent group opposed to the Quinn companies being run by new management is behind the attacks.

The companies were formerly owned by Quinn, who built up a multibillion-pound insurance business in the Celtic Tiger.

Once one of Ireland’s richest men, he lost control of his company in 2014 after racking up €2bn debt in a financial gamble on Anglo Irish Bank, whose spectacular collapse precipitated Ireland’s bailout by the EU and the International Monetary Fund in November 2011. Lunney worked with him in his attempts to regain control of the business.

Earlier this year, QIH said two of its directors were assaulted in a shop and last October there were two suspected arson attacks on homes of executives.