Gerard Casey is sitting with his back to the three-bay sash windows on the second floor of Cantor Fitzgerald Ireland’s headquarters. The stately boardroom overlooks the north side of St Stephen’s Green in the heart of Dublin. 

Casey has the build of a former rugby and GAA player, the ease with numbers of a trained mathematician, and the down-to-earth manner of the son of a Tipperary farmer and cattle dealer.  

After 20 years working in London with some of the world’s biggest investment banks, including nearly a decade with Goldman Sachs working on capital markets, he now leads Cantor Fitzgerald in Ireland having taken over from Ronan Reid in August 2023. 

We’re meeting a few weeks after Cantor’s Irish office broke through the €50 million revenue mark in 2023 with pre-tax profits rising by 161 per cent to €9.4 million and assets overseen by the firm increased by 24 per cent to €8.2 billion. 

Since then, Casey tells me this has risen to €9 billion. This year will also be a “strong” one, he discloses. Casey feels the firm has even greater potential in Ireland, and he reveals it is on the lookout for acquisitions in Britain and Ireland in a move that could see the firm grow even more rapidly. 

A provider of wealth and asset management services, Cantor Fitzgerald Ireland is part of the global Cantor Fitzgerald group, which employs 12,500 and has $9 billion in revenue.  

Casey is convinced that this global reach – the firm has 60 offices around the world – provides clients of its Irish office an edge that can’t be found in its domestically owned rivals. 

The firm has been growing fast. Casey is advancing plans to accelerate that growth.

From a bookmaker on Dame Street to the City of London 

Gerard Casey does not come from a traditional stockbroking background – but, having grown up around marts, cattle trading, and farming, he is steeped in dealmaking. Often, they were secured on a handshake. 

It was, he admits, a good grounding for the cut and thrust of capital markets. “Buying and selling is second nature,” Casey said. “All my uncles and aunts are entrepreneurs one way or another, so my interest in business and finance was there from the get-go.” 

Casey went to school at Rockwell College in Cashel, where he played rugby and GAA, before studying mathematics at Trinity College Dublin. In a class of 40, he was no longer among the smartest people in the room. “The top five or six in the class were just incredible,” he recalled. “They could read mathematics the same as you or I would read English. It was just their language, and they could converse in it.” 

Like the majority of his class, he worked hard to keep up. 

“It was really challenging, but it did give you a very good framework for problem-solving,” Casey said. “That’s something that has stood to me since… approaching a problem by understanding what principles you have to operate in, and then trying to execute.” 

He gravitated into finance after a cousin regaled him with tales of working as a sales trader for Credit Suisse. “He explained what he did, and that got me really excited about trying to get into the City.” 

Casey interned with UBS in London; from the start he loved it. “It gave me a window, a summer of really seeing it and then I was hooked from then,” Casey said, who added that resilience was the key to getting started in the world of trading.  

Getting a job can take up to 20 interviews; staying the pace requires putting in long hours often under pressure, he said, adding that getting practical experience in entrepreneurship and business was also invaluable. 

In university, he ran discos with a friend and worked part-time as a bookmaker on Dame Street.

“Working in Stanley Racing probably taught me more about human nature and the danger of gambling than really putting the mathematical muscles to work [figuring out odds]. It was really interesting, but it put me off gambling forever,” he said. 

Casey’s first job was as an equity trader with Leman Brothers in London, before leaving for Goldman Sachs in 2005. He stayed at the global finance giant for almost a decade. 

I ask if Goldman was as tough as people say. “We didn’t really talk about balance,” Casey laughed. “There are points of extremes when I think back on my career. Obviously, the GFC (Global Financial Crisis) for everyone was highly volatile, it was a very intense period.” 

In 2010 Casey was in charge of the energy and resources trading book for Goldman Sachs in Europe. That April, the Deepwater Horizon spill at the Macondo Prospect in the Gulf of Mexico unleashed over three million barrels of oil into the ocean, the largest in US history. Casey found himself embroiled in a roller coaster as BP’s stock fell by 51 per cent in 40 days. Other oil stocks went down too. “I was number one market share in BP, Shell, and all of those stocks,” Casey said. “My working day from late April right through to September was to arrive at 6:30 am, start making prices to clients at 7 am, market officially opening at eight, then trade London up until 4:30 pm, take a break for a few hours, and then trade New York until nine o’clock. Then start again the next day.” 

It was relentless, but Casey thrived. “There are periods in your career where you can accelerate if you lean into it,” he said. 

From oil, Casey moved on to trading financials. He did a lot of business on the markets in Hong Kong, which required him to get up at 3 am to place orders, and then go back to bed before arriving at work at 6:30 am to begin trading. 

What was his big break? “It was probably after I started at Leman Brothers in 2002. My boss, who I’m still very good friends with, out of the blue resigned and moved to New York. He’d fallen in love with a girl, and he didn’t want to be in London anymore.” 

Rather than hire a new expensive trader, Leman asked Casey to fill in. He was only 22. “The head of trading just let me get on with it,” Casey recalled. “There were times when I was frankly petrified, but it does inform the rest of your career. I think being forged in the fire early helped me to stay calm under pressure and make decisions. It also gave me the context of knowing no matter what happened, the sun still rose the next day. I think if you’re hardened early on, it makes your career a lot easier later on.”

In 2014 Casey married Tonya Meli, a former television producer who works as a consultant and strategist with luxury brands. They’d bought a holiday home in west Cork that was formerly owned by the tycoon Tony O’Reilly. They were already spending more time in Ireland as they started their young family. But then the opportunity arose to move home full-time by joining Cantor Fitzgerald.  

Growing a franchise

Gerard Casey’s first day in Cantor Fitzgerald Ireland was on March 8, 2020, just before the pandemic. “It was an unusual start,” he said. “I’d moved from an institutional business to a wealth business as well as moving geographies.” 

By his own admission, it was a lot of change.

His move to Ireland was spurred by family reasons, and also by his belief that there was a big opportunity to provide a “best in class” service in Irish wealth.  

“I felt that we, as a firm, could make an impact and that was really the big motivation,” he said.  

“Thankfully, that’s playing out. Being based in Dublin is not a valid excuse for a lack of ambition or a lack of scale. You can be in London in two hours. The world is connected constantly. Dublin is a fantastic place to be based.”

Casey spent a little over three years with Cantor reporting to Ronan Reid, before taking on the top job. Reid has a similar entrepreneurial streak after building up his own stockbroking firm, Dolmen, before selling it to Cantor in 2012. In 2017 Cantor bought the L&P Group, a Dublin investment firm specialising in advising charities, not-for-profits and religious orders, and, in 2018, it acquired Merrion Capital Investment Managers for a price reported to be up to €18 million. 

In August 2023, Casey took over as chief executive, with Reid staying on as a non-executive director. 

Was it hard moving from working in capital markets to a manager role leading a team of over 215 people? “It was a very conscious transition,” Casey said. 

“I loved Lehman, I loved Goldman…but I took a broader role because I wanted to broaden my skill set and get away from the immediacy of trading.

“I wanted to grow a business, grow a franchise and do all the things that that entails. The move to Cantor was a natural next evolution. I absolutely enjoyed trading, but I prefer this.” 

Cantor has added to its team in recent years. It hired Orla Mitton as CFO from Barclays Europe where she was head of financial control. Aine Cornally joined from Bank of Ireland as chief operating officer. David Tilson has come in as head of capital markets. Debbie Mullarkey was promoted to chief compliance officer. Last year Cantor hired 57 new people taking its headcount to 215 people in Ireland. “We’ve hired fairly aggressively, and we’re going to continue to do so,” Casey said.  

Performance, return and acquisitions 

Cantor Fitzgerald has described itself as “the biggest little guy” in global finance.

In the Irish market, Cantor is a challenger brand. Davy, founded in 1926 and now owned by Bank of Ireland, is the biggest player. 

Goodbody, founded in 1874 and older than the Irish state, is now controlled by AIB. Direct comparisons are not easy, but in terms of wealth management in Ireland, Davy, Goodbody and Cantor are the big three.  

Casey says he doesn’t think about becoming the biggest, just being the best wherever Cantor competes. 

“We can only control the controllables,” he laughs. “We’re not obsessed with being number one in the market. We’re just obsessed about fulfilling our potential and continuing to deliver for clients because that creates its own virtuous circle. Will we have a stronger market share going forward? Do I hope for that? Yeah, absolutely.”

Casey said that Cantor Fitzgerald was “slightly ahead” of its target to double in size from the time he took over. “We’ve been helped by the market, but the executive team and the team on the ground here have really got stuck in,” he said. 

“There’s a huge amount of talent in this firm, and a huge amount of energy so we’re really mobilising and moving forward.  

“Client outcomes have been really strong over the last couple of years. Our flagship multi-asset fund is in the top one per cent of funds available in Europe.”  

Caset said that “performance and return for our clients” has been “exceptional”.  

“There is momentum. As AUM [assets under management] grows, so does our revenue. Our interests are completely aligned with the clients’ success. So, markets have helped us, performance has helped us and so has having great people and a great client base,” he said.

With two months left to go in 2024, Casey is upbeat about its performance. “Top line growth is roughly 20 per cent,” Casey said. “It’s entirely organic, so that’s a good result, we feel.” 

Will Cantor break through the €60 million revenue mark this year? “Ideally,” Casey said. “We’re targeting north of €60 million. 

“But we have to bear in mind that we will continue to invest in our business, invest in our people, invest in our technology. We have a very long-term plan here for Cantor in Ireland that requires investment and we have huge support from the US to continue doing that.”

Casey said being part of a global business gave it access to better technology as well as access to more expertise. 

“On the human-capital side, we’ve got, for example, the number one-rated semiconductor analyst working for us, CJ Muse. We have two of the top-rated biotech analysts in the world working for us in the US. We are currently number one in the US in the IPO league tables,” he said. 

“What we can bring to the table is quite unique in the Irish market.” 

Cantor Fitzgerald’s equity research teams cover more than 320 companies globally. The Sunday Times reported earlier this year it was opening a US equity desk in Dublin targeting European institutional investors. 

“Post Brexit, continental European institutions have to be serviced by a European entity. We’re the MiFID [Markets in Financial Instruments Directive] licence holder in Europe so we’re building that desk out of here which is pretty exciting” Casey said, adding that covering the Irish Stock Exchange was “very, very hard” because it was so small.  

“When you’ve got best-in-class US product, you are filling a gap for European institutions because more and more of the global capital market is US,” Casey said. “We have analysts and bankers in core sectors who are acknowledged to be the best out there, it’s a good proposition. It’s a great opportunity for us as Cantor Ireland to really leverage off the strength of the group and be even more important to the group.”

Casey said the US equity desk will start trading this quarter: “At the moment it’s three or four people but we can see that adding as we get established and get running.” 

Cantor Fitzgerald’s core business in Ireland is wealth management and it now manages assets of roughly €9 billion. “We’ve had a strong year again this year,” Casey said. 

Historically, Cantor in Ireland has been prepared to acquire other businesses as well as growing organically. “We would be very much open to acquisition,” Casey said. “We’ve focused on organic growth for the last four or five years but we’re in a strong position. M&A is something that is part of our DNA as a firm.”

Where would Cantor Fitzgerald Ireland look to buy? “Ireland, certainly. The UK, certainly, just because of rule of law and accessibility to market. Those would be the two primary geographies we’ll look at,” he said. 

Cantor’s business in London is primarily broker-dealer, so if it bought another wealth management business in Britain it would be brought in as part of Dublin. “The UK market is interesting because there’s been so much consolidation there,” Casey said. 

In recent years, private equity has been rolling up wealth management businesses in Britain. Casey hinted some of these firms might now be ready to sell. “Some of these roll-ups have worked, others haven’t,” he said. 

He said increasing regulation as well as the “uncertainty” around what a Labour government will do around wealth might lead some of these firms to sell. “You may see some stress in the market and that might be interesting,” Casey said. “Our primary focus remains organic growth in Ireland, but we’re very open to M&A.”   

Building an investment culture

Casey lived in Britain when the Individual Savings Account (ISA) was introduced 25 years ago by Gordon Brown. Around 11.8 million adults in Britain have availed of the product, creating an investment ecosystem and culture that sadly doesn’t exist in Ireland. 

Casey said it is something that Ireland needs to look at. “I am a very big advocate of an ISA-like product in Ireland. It incentivises people to invest, and it incentivises people to start a little bit earlier,” he said. 

He said the government’s move to introduce pension auto-enrollment was welcome. “It will help to ingrain an investment mindset in society,” he said. 

Cantor, he said, was focused on clients with more than €250,000 to invest so it was unlikely to impact it directly: “We can offer people the access to the best funds in Europe, the best people in the market, but it isn’t a mass market product as such.” 

Cantor has a corporate finance team which has raised many millions for Irish businesses using the Employment and Investment Incentive tax break investment schemes. “Helping domestic companies is really important to us,” Casey said. “We have to contribute to the community that we operate in. So, helping young firms grow and get that early capital is really important.” 

Private capital markets and corporate finance advice in relation to it were areas where Cantor hopes to grow more. “You can see the disintermediation of banks from the credit process for a lot of corporates and particularly SMEs,” Casey said. 

“There’s a whole ecosystem that’s growing and we should be part of it. Getting access to US capital is something that we can provide domestically that no one else can, so we should be leaning into that as well.” Casey mentions backing Mainstream Renewables early on as well as supporting whiskey distilleries and Farra Marine as examples of the types of deals it has done. He said moves to encourage Irish companies to raise money on the stock market here were to be welcomed, but he felt it was going to be a hard slog to rebuild the Irish Stock Exchange. 

“The challenges regarding the Irish Stock Exchange are not unique to Ireland,” he said. “Capital is flowing to capital centres whether it’s Hong Kong or the US. It is very hard to see what might change that. if I was a really high-potential technology company in Ireland who wanted to scale, my focus would be on accessing US capital, rather than purely domestic.

“You could see the Irish market develop for smaller companies as a stepping stone, but I think it would be challenging to see a very big established company decide to list in Dublin rather than one of the global centres.”

Casey identified other areas where he saw opportunities to expand in Ireland. Cantor has a big infrastructure team in London which has already worked on big deals here. Energy transition, he said, was another area that Cantor globally wanted to invest more in as Ireland became greener. 

Resilience and scrappiness 

Cantor Fitzgerald has an entrepreneurial culture rooted in its charismatic leader Howard Lutnick. The 63-year-old is an iconic figure on Wall Street having led his firm through 9/11 when it lost 658 of its people in the horrific terrorist attack. 

A book by Lutnick’s sister Edie Lutnick, ‘An Unbroken Bond’, gives an insight into the resilience that is at the heart of Cantor. Her description of their younger brother Gary’s final phone call from the 103rd floor of the North Tower is heartbreaking. Howard Lutnick himself missed the attack by minutes because he was late for work after dropping his son off at kindergarten. 

In the immediate aftermath of the attack, Cantor almost went bankrupt, forcing it to stop paying its dead staff their salaries. This caused outrage at the time, but Cantor went on to donate $180 million from its profits to the families who lost loved ones. Lutnick himself gave $90 million, and Cantor’s foundation campaigned hard for over a decade to ensure its lost team members were remembered. It is an incredible story that it is impossible not to admire. 

The comeback of Cantor is also impressive. Cantor itself is a privately owned business which includes Cantor Fitzgerald Ireland as well as stakes in two Nasdaq-listed companies.

One of these companies is the BGC Group, which is on track to become the biggest brokerage in the world again, for the first time since 9/11. 

The second is called the Newmark Group, a commercial real estate advisor that recently advised America’s Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation on a $60 billion loan sale, the largest real estate loan sale in United States history. 

Casey is regularly in contact with Lutnick, who he says has visited Ireland multiple times. Lutnick is also the co-chair of United States presidential nominee Donald Trump’s transition team. Lutnick has spoken about wanting to bring back manufacturing to America and last month said on X that Ireland “runs a trade surplus at our expense”. 

Casey said Lutnick’s comments were made in his political role and not as the leader of Cantor. “Howard has said himself he’s proudly grown Cantor Fitzgerald in Ireland and will continue to do so. His commitment to the business here and to our future here is massive,” he said. 

“He’s a guy who survived 9/11 by chance. He lost so many employees, his brother, his friends… and he rebuilt a business that now employs over 12,000 people. We are present in every global market, and Ireland is a really important part of the Cantor Fitzgerald family of businesses.” Casey said. “So, I think that’s the context.”  

Should Ireland be worried about a Republican victory? “I don’t think Ireland has anything to really be afraid of, as long as we continue to make the right decisions domestically around investing in infrastructure and around continuing to welcome FDI.  

“There’s lots that we can control and that should be the focus.” 

There has been concern among Irish business leaders that Ireland is becoming complacent about its success. Does Casey share these concerns? “I think any leader, whether it’s in business or in politics, should be utterly paranoid about complacency leaking into their system.” 

“For the next government, their number-one priority must be to ensure that those difficult decisions are around investment, human capital, infrastructure, governance, innovation and technology and access to capital. These are the building blocks of generating wealth in a country and the next government has to take a long-term view on these things and not be distracted by short-term electoral concerns.”  

“I think it’s a dangerous narrative to be out there that we’re turning away FDI and we’re not as commercial as we should be. That’s something that has to be addressed.” Casey is determined that Cantor Fitzgerald will become a larger investor in Ireland, as well as continue to deliver for its clients. “We have a unique proposition in Ireland,” he said.

“If you want a current account go somewhere else. We’ve got a huge firm behind us that is purely focused on investment and performance and returns and client service. I think that sets us apart. We are a challenger to the incumbents in Ireland and very happy to be seen that way. We like being scrappy. We like being entrepreneurial and we’ve got a great product and great people so we’ve nothing to be afraid of.”