Davy Group has announced the appointment of Bernard Byrne as chief executive, following regulatory approval by the Central Bank of Ireland. Mr Byrne was appointed interim CEO in March 2021, having joined Davy as head of capital markets and deputy CEO in May 2019.

The Davy sale to Bank of Ireland and related regulatory approval processes are ongoing and remain on schedule for anticipated completion in the first half of 2022, the broker said.

Mr Byrne, who stepped down as AIB chief executive in 2019, took up the interim role at Davy after chief executive Brian McKiernan, deputy chairman Kyran McLaughlin and head of bonds Barry Nangle resigned their positions in the country’s largest stockbroking firm amid the fallout from a Central Bank fine and rebuke over a breach of market rules last year. Davy had been fined €4.1 million by the Central Bank.

The firm is corporate broker to two-thirds of the companies listed on the Iseq 20 index in Dublin. The sheer scale of the business it carries out on the Irish stock market meant that it ended up with a 37.5 per cent stake in the exchange before the bourse’s €158 million sale to pan-European bourse operator Euronext in 2018.