In 2018, Graham Cawley was in the midst of building his own property finance firm after finishing up an 11-year stint with Davy. Cawley had developed an alternative lender to service the Irish real estate market called Santiago Capital.

The business has thrived since then, extending around €200 million worth of loans into the sector since its inception. Santiago Capital accepts investor funds on a “co-funding basis” that enables them to lend to projects with products like bridging finance, urban redevelopment finance, and construction finance. It also enables investors to offer finance to social housing projects too.

But, given his extensive experience advising on investment portfolios, he had no intention of stopping there.

“It was always my intention when I set up Santiago Capital to set up an investment advisory firm with it in parallel,” he tells The Currency ahead of the company’s event with former Conservative MP and The Rest is Politics host Rory Stewart this week.

That investment firm, which would ultimately become Santiago Investment Advisors, came about thanks to a meeting with another fellow long-term Davy staffer: Ronan O’Houlihan.

“So he set up an investment advisory firm when I met him in 2018 then we had a good chat, and a lot of the philosophy we had about how clients should be treated and how portfolios should be run, we were passionate about and shared our shared views on or shared the same views on,” Cawley says.

“So while I’ve been pedalling furiously trying to grow Santiago Capital, I’ve also kind of been pedalling furiously to try and grow Santiago Investment Advisors. So when I met Ronan, he had €30 million under management. A few years later, we had it up to €80 million under management, and we’re now just tipping the scales at €300 million.”

In that period, Santiago has grown to 11 staff, which includes the additions of associate directors Dexter Cottam and Basil Darcy. Cawley also has designs on growing the business further, rising to a headcount of around 30 people and assets under management of around €1 billion. He explains that Santiago’s investment strategy is designed to stand out with a client-led approach.

“So much of the business has been homogenised and standardised that you feed your ten questions into the computer, turn the knob and you’re told: ‘Well, you’re risk number three to put you into portfolio number five’, and that might look like it’s really well diversified.

“It might be a fund of funds with 30 funds, but if you were to put on your X-ray specs, you’d see that for the equity funds, probably they all have very similar top five holdings, and the person that’s dealing with the client is so far removed from the decisions as to what’s to be invested in and why.”

Cawley adds that while some may not mind that approach, he does, and that he prefers that his clients feel they have portfolios that they resonate with and that they understand why they’re holding particular positions during periods of market volatility.

“I would say we can get up to ten to 15 senior portfolio managers, each with 15 to 20 years of more experience. There is a shake-up afoot and there are not that many firms whose strategy is akin to what I described,” he says, adding that it would suit a discerning portfolio manager who likes to “really be able to stand over what’s going into his portfolios and work with like-minded folks and clients”.

Independent thinking

For clients, Santiago’s offering spans everything from investment management and pensions to protection and financial planning. Much of those are impacted by global events and there have been few times in recent history where so much uncertainty has taken hold within the investor landscape.

Having just been through a pandemic, the global economy is now dealing with growing pockets of war, hardened relations between China and the US, and widespread uncertainty that has been tied to the return of President-elect Donald Trump to the White House.

The importance of such macroeconomic trends has been key to Santiago’s decision to host an evening with Rory Stewart in the RDS Concert Hall this Wednesday, November 27. Stewart, who was beaten by Boris Johnson to become Prime Minister in 2019, has grown in prominence since he exited the Conservative Party in part due to his inability to ethically stand over the actions of Johnson.

He is now the co-host of The Rest is Politics, alongside Alastair Campbell, one of the UK and indeed Ireland’s most popular podcasts. Stewart is also the author of Politics on the Edge, an incisive look back at his time in politics that expresses his dismay at the way in which it operates. He has grown to be an authoritative figure on global affairs, particularly in the Middle East, where his explainer of the Gaza conflict has been viewed millions of times.

“He’s independent, so he’s coming without any particular agenda, whereas like, a variety of presentations that… lots of international fund managers that offered to meet with our clients but they’re coming with their house, view, their house agenda, for want of a better word,” Basil Darcy, who has been advising and managing client investment portfolios for 37 years, says of the decision to host the evening with Stewart.

“Whereas someone like Rory Stewart, he’s formed his own view and it’s independent thinking.”

Darcy adds that clients are looking for advice on what they should be doing given the ongoing global uncertainty that has taken hold. He gives the example of the US equity market where there is a “very highly concentrated level” of large-cap stocks.

“So people are wondering should you switch and rebalance more to areas where there’s better value? But then is that going to impact growth,” Darcy says.

“The US bond market has already reacted to Trump’s election in terms of where the 10-year yield is gone, and that’s probably going to go higher.”

Santiago CEO Cawley explains that the discussion with Stewart will cover issues that are on clients’ minds, including Gaza, immigration, and the rise in prominence of the woke discussion in US politics.

Dexter Cottam says that the event is predominantly for Santiago clients but that it is also broadening the audience further to those interested in listening to Rory’s views.

“It’s invaluable, probably having somebody of Rory’s calibre to discuss some of the pressing issues in the world today. And again, as Basil said, I guess a very kind of unbiased view of doing what he does in today’s world,” Cottam says.

On Wednesday, 27 November in the RDS Concert Hall, Santiago are hosting a business event with guest speaker Rory Stewart, former British politician and co-host of The Rest is Politics podcast series. If you are interested in attending, please email members@thecurrency.news.