Davy hooks British royals’ former banker for wealth advisory board

J&E Davy revels in its position as the blue-blooded house of Dublin stockbroking. How fitting, then, that the latest appointment to the high- powered advisory board of its private clients division is the Queen of England’s former banker.

Andrew Fisher, a former chief executive of Coutts, one's bank, will join the board just as Davy targets more business in Northern Ireland and Britain. It follows the appointment to the board earlier this year of Henry Algeo, a former top executive of Brewin Dolphin.

Fisher’s most recent gig was as chief executive of Towry, a top UK financial advisor and wealth manager.

Wealth is very much back in fashion, in case you haven’t noticed.

He has a reputation for being quite the plain speaker. Fisher was in the top job at Coutts when it came under the wing of Royal Bank of Scotland in the days of Fred "the Shred" Goodwin, RBS's infamous former chief executive. The two men did not get on.

“He said I seemed to know what I was talking about, which was gracious, so he let me stay, but it really was like the night of the long knives,” Fisher once said.

“I found [Goodwin] to be very difficult. I fell out with him pretty much every week. His standard phrase on the phone was: ‘We seem to be disagreeing on a lot, Andrew.’ And I said: ‘Well I think that’s because you are wrong a lot, Fred.’”

Like Fisher, Brian McKiernan, Davy’s wealth management supremo and the firm’s chief executive-designate, is another man whose bark supposedly matches his bite.

I’m sure they’ll have great craic together.