In an era of high job mobility, the three decades that Pat Cooney, Davy’s retiring head of wealth management, has spent at the firm is something we are unlikely to see again.

“I joined Davy as a private client advisor and learned the ropes in what was, back then, a very different Davy and a very different Ireland,” says Cooney.

For a start, “there was nothing like the wealth that was to come about over the following few decades,” he explains.

“It was an exciting time to be in wealth management. You could feel the atmosphere of positivity and success in the air. You could feel something was going to happen.”

It did, resulting in the heady days of the Celtic Tiger boom. Now, with the benefit of hindsight it is clear that risks were building across the market.

Unfortunately, Cooney’s role in wealth management also gave him a front-row seat to the Celtic Tiger crash.

“It had a huge impact,” he recalls. Davy’s clients, like millions of investors worldwide, faced significant financial losses and the firm, as with the broader global financial services industry, had difficult questions to answer about their role and responsibility, alongside figuring out how best to support their clients to rebuild their wealth.

Since then, there has been a renewed focus on anticipating risks. Cooney says the firm tries “to get ahead of things, looks to see what’s coming next, looks to innovation and investment.”

After industry shortcomings were exposed by the financial crash, rebuilding client trust was essential. “There is a healthy paranoia about client satisfaction, and trust scores, that has remained steady and consistent for a long time,” says Cooney.

While rivals went into “quiet mode”, Davy did not, he says.

“While we did cut costs in certain areas, we didn’t stop investing. We looked to the future.”

The global financial crisis and the volatility arising from it, “helped to spur on the next evolution of the private client business from what was an investment manager into a true holistic wealth manager”.

That transition was underpinned in the business’s name change, from Davy Stockbrokers to Davy.

“We wanted to change our name to reflect a broader offering. When we reflected on what had actually happened in the financial crisis, how it was driven by too much property exposure and too much leverage, how it was a ‘risk on’ environment, the lesson we learned, and that we subsequently integrated into our proposition, was the importance of financial planning to set the personal context of investment – and diversification,” he points out.

Internal processes were improved. “We changed our centralised decision making and the management of our portfolios.” Davy also focused on innovation and recruitment for emerging skillsets, while developing out the proposition in terms of financial planning and investment management “under one roof”.

Post-crash, the firm, and the economy in general, benefited from some of the positive macro factors that began to emerge.

“There was inward investment, the economy was growing, wealth generation continued to be strong as well. Ireland had a growing population, a strong economy, and a booming global stock market,” Cooney recalls.

“We also had US multinationals and the beginning of second- and third-generation wealth here. And Davy had the advantage over many others in that it had continued to invest in the tough years.”

That included not just growing from a purely stockbroking to an investment management business, but also investing significant amounts into its pensions capability, previously the domain of insurance companies.

In 2021, following the Anglo bonds investigation, the Central Bank fined Davy €4.13 million for breaches over an internal transaction dating back to 2014.

Later that year, Davy was sold to Bank of Ireland for €440 million, ushering in a new era.

Cooney recently announced his retirement but he is staying on for 12 months to guide the firm’s 100-year celebrations.

“We’ve been through it all, seen it all, had ups and downs,” he says. “We’ve made mistakes and never run away from them. Rather, we leaned into them to see how we could improve.

“Our 100 years matter because it shows we’re committed to the Irish market for the long term, continuing to invest and continuing to look to the next iteration.”