Grupo Davy

James y Eugene Davy se criaron en Rathmines ^{[ 6 ]} y James, siguiendo el consejo de su profesor de economía de la UCD, decidió entrar en el mundo de la bolsa después de graduarse en Economía, mientras que Eugene se graduó en Derecho.

In 1926, a few years after Irish independence, James Davy became a member of the Dublin Stock Exchange and was soon joined by his brother Eugene to establish J&E Davy, with its first office located on Westmoreland Street. At the time, Irish stockbroking was dominated by brokers who trained in London and lacked a more specific Irish perspective. The bulk of business consisted of buying and selling major British-quoted shares for private clients. It was in this environment that J&E Davy set about building up a stockbroking business.

Over the next two decades the two brothers gradually built up the company by tapping into the slowly emerging Catholic middle class, (the majority of its competitors being run by Protestants). It was also helped by Eugene Davy's contact's obtained through playing rugby, being capped 34 times for Ireland, acting as manager of the national team, and eventually becoming President of the IRFU.

Their respective sons Brian and Joseph began to take control of the broker in the 1960s.^[7] Davy handled its first IPO listing on the Irish Stock Exchange in 1964.

In 1988, Bank of Ireland acquired a majority stake in Davy and increased that to 90% in 1992.

In 2004, Davy opened an office in Cork providing wealth management and corporate finance services to clients in the Munster region.

By 2005, Davy was responsible for the listings of over 60% of the companies on the Irish Stock Exchange.

In 2006, it became independent again following a management and staff buy-out of the company with loans provided by Anglo Irish Bank for €316 million, a figure acknowledged to reflect top of market conditions. This year also brought the opening of another regional office for Davy, located in Galway.^[8]

The same year, Davy opened a dedicated office for Northern Ireland, located in Belfast city centre.^[9]

In August 2010, Davy opened its first overseas office in London.

Davy was the only Irish dealer in Irish Government Bonds, when the country returned to the market for the first time since 2010 in January 2012.^[10]

In 2012, Davy Research was named Ireland's No.1 brokerage and also the country's No.1 Equity Research Team in the Institutional Investor All-Europe Research Team 2012 Survey.^[11][12]

Davy advised the Irish Government on the sale of the national lottery license,^[13] operated by the stated owned An Post.

On 8 March 2012, Davy announced acquired Bloxham Stockbrokers private client business.^[14] The following May, Davy announced that it had acquired Bloxham's asset management business. The deal, together with the acquisition of Bloxham's private client business added approximately €1.2billion to the value of assets under management by Davy.^[15]

On 3 October 2012, Davy launched Davy Select, an online investment fund "supermarket" aimed at consumers looking to invest as little as €500 in a pension. The platform – which cost Davy €10 million to develop – was modelled on UK online fund selection sites which captured 20 per cent of the market in five years. Davy called for the abolition of exit charges by all pension providers "so that consumers can invest on the basis of performance and service and not be restricted by anti-consumer lock-in agreements".^[16]

When the Irish Stock Exchange demutualised in April 2014, the broker became its largest shareholder holding 37.5% of the Exchange.^[17]

In 2018, Davy along with Bastow Charleton Wealth Management (BCWM) were appointed by the liquidator of Custom House Capital to take over the return and administration of client funds following the collapse of the company following a fraud.^[18]

In 2022, J&E Davy Stockbrokers (trading as Davy) was acquired by Bank of Ireland in a €427m deal.^[3][19]

In 2024, Davy sold its property arm to David Goddard, with it rebranding to Lanthorn.^[20]

The Mahon Tribunal established that Davy, throughout the 1980s and 1990s, made a series of payments to the corrupt politician Liam Lawlor.^[21][22]

In 1992, Davy made a political donation of £5,000 to Bertie Ahern, which ended-up in his personal account at Irish Life & Permanent plc.^[23][24][25]

Al año siguiente, la empresa fue objeto de una investigación de la Bolsa de Valores de Irlanda por la gestión de la salida a bolsa de Greencore plc, la empresa azucarera irlandesa recientemente privatizada . El entonces Taoiseach , Albert Reynolds, no se anduvo con rodeos en sus críticas: «Se contrata a profesionales para realizar este trabajo... y no se hizo de forma profesional». El socio gerente dimitió.

Davy admitió que sus representantes en 1999 idearon un plan de evasión fiscal con sede en Liechtenstein que fue descubierto por la emisora ​​pública RTÉ . ^{[ 26 ] [ 27 ] [ 28 ]} Un portavoz de Davy confirmó que el plan descrito en el memorando no se utilizó. ^{[ 29 ]}

En un caso de alto perfil sobre uso de información privilegiada en 2005, el director ejecutivo de Fyffes plc, cuyas acciones fueron objeto de la operación ilícita, afirmó haber sido víctima de una trampa orquestada por Davy y haber sido engañado mediante una presentación realizada por Davy a los inversores en nombre de su empresa. También declaró ante el Tribunal Superior que creía que existía un acuerdo entre Davy y la parte declarada responsable por los tribunales del uso de información privilegiada con el fin de vender las acciones que poseían en su empresa. ^{[ 30 ] [ 31 ]}

Two reports of an investigation into the "wholly inappropriate sale of perpectual bonds" by Davy to credit unions failed to involve any of the credit unions affected, leaving them "in the dark and powerless to add any value to the findings of this investigation". The Irish Stock Exchange, who has Davy as one of its largest shareholders, and the Central Bank of Ireland then declined to give them access to the reports. The Chairman of one of the Credit Unions who suffered large losses told his members "The failure to publish the reports is to place the complaints process in a shroud of secrecy. Such a failure of openness, transparency and fairness can only serve to undermine confidence in the complaints process, forcing those with grievances into the courts. Such a course of action is not in the interest of any of the stakeholders."^[32] A statement issued by the Irish Stock Exchange in relation to these reports acknowledged important mitigating factors such as: the changed investment demands of credit unions which were seeking higher yield investments, fundamentally altered conditions in bond markets, and the extensive interaction between Davy and its credit union clients. The Exchange stated that it was satisfied that Davy had taken appropriate remedial action to ensure that internal controls and conduct of business procedures had been rectified to mitigate against any recurrence of the breaches discovered.^[33]

Enfield Credit Union agreed to accept a €35 million offer from Davy to credit unions affected by the sale of investment bonds to settle its claim against the stockbroking firm that it claimed Davy mis-sold to them.^[34] The terms secured by Enfield's advisers also applied to all the credit unions who are nursing losses of about €75 million on the €183 million worth of bonds Davy sold to them.^[35][36][37] Around 100 credit unions suffered a second round of losses because the bond that Davy acquired to compensate them for the earlier losses itself crashed in value.^[38]

In December 2011, the Central Bank reprimanded and fined the firm for failing to report 61,542 transactions.^[39] Davy said that the breaches were "technical" and had been reported to the regulator by the firm in September 2010. "These were wholly technical reporting issues, with no client impact which were identified by Davy and voluntarily reported to the Central Bank, " a spokesman said.^[40]

In April 2014 a young man described as "very vulnerable" with intellectual and other difficulties having suffered two strokes by the age of ten was awarded more than €2m by the High Court after the stockbroking engaged in "deliberate neglect" and breach of duty of care in encouraging him to invest large amounts of his inherited €5m monies in "seriously risky" contracts for difference resulting in substantial investment losses. The only child aged just 20 when he began his investment relationship with Davy using some €5m inherited from his dead parents, was "not a person in the full of their intellectual, physical and mental health", the judge said and "should have been obvious to any observer of average perception" and many tests carried out on him showed "alarming degrees of impairment". There was a "systems failure" in Davy concerning its treatment of the vulnerable young man who they had sign blank paperwork, failures in its documents section and failure in responsibility by higher management, including a senior manager who certified in a "paper-covering exercise" that their client was suitable for Contract for Difference (CFD) trading, the judge found.^[41][42][43] In a statement by Davy, the firm acknowledged "that initial trading gains recorded by the plaintiff on his Davy account were more than offset by subsequent losses during the downturn in 2008 and that processes in place at that time did not take adequate account of the plaintiff's unique circumstances,". It said the "processes in place at Davy at the time the investments were made pre-dated major regulatory changes and these had been reviewed and enhanced in line with regulatory developments since". Davy said that "it would carefully assess the outcome from the case that might benefit Davy clients in the future".^[44]

In January 2012 the board of Siteserv announced the appointment of Davy Corporate Finance to advise (alongside KMPG) on their strategic and corporate options given the pending maturity of their debt with IBRC. 18 months after the Siteserv deal Des Carville, the Davy adviser on the transaction joined the Department of Finance. In responses to parliamentary questions posed, the Department of Finance said that Carville had declared a potential conflict of interest arising from his involvement with Siteserv before he joined. The government said he "has not been involved in any issues on the Siteserv transaction" such as approving parliamentary questions, reviewing freedom of information requests and all internal discussions on the matter.

Catherine Murphy, la diputada independiente que cuestionó el papel del departamento y del IBRC, de propiedad estatal, en la venta de Siteserv con una pérdida de 105 millones de euros para los contribuyentes, respondió a las preguntas parlamentarias dirigidas a Noonan. Murphy también preguntó a Noonan sobre la posibilidad de que la compra de acciones de Siteserv utilizando información privilegiada se hubiera producido mientras el proceso de venta estaba en curso. Noonan afirmó que su departamento no supervisa la actividad de compraventa de acciones. En respuesta, Davy declaró: «Davy acogería con satisfacción cualquier investigación que las autoridades reguladoras competentes inicien con respecto a las transacciones de acciones de Siteserv y confía en que dicha investigación demostrará que estas acusaciones carecen totalmente de fundamento». ^{[ 45 ]}

En marzo de 2021, el Grupo Davy fue multado con 4,1 millones de euros por el Banco Central de Irlanda en relación con una operación de compraventa de bonos de 2014 en la que 16 empleados de Davy, entre ellos el director ejecutivo Brian McKiernan y el expresidente Kyran McLaughlin, participaron en la adquisición de bonos a un precio inferior al del mercado (5,58 millones de euros) a un cliente, sin revelarle que eran empleados de Davy quienes habían comprado los bonos. Posteriormente, los bonos se vendieron con beneficios a un gestor de fondos externo. Tras la investigación del Banco Central de Irlanda y la imposición de la multa, muchos de los altos directivos se vieron obligados a dimitir y la empresa se puso a la venta. ^{[ 46 ] [ 47 ] [ 48 ]}