Cashel is becoming a player in the global financial sector

When I usually arrive at Cashel Town Shopping Centre, I am not normally focused on matters of global finance, but more on the special offers I may pick up in Tesco or how my end bill may have risen due to current cost of living increases.

However, on this occasion I am here to meet with Nick Wheeler, Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Waystone, a major financial services group, whose offices are housed within the complex.

Waystone’s acquisition of Link Fund Solutions, completed on October 9, along with the corporate merger with KB Associates which was finalised in late September, means Waystone is now supporting asset managers with more than US$2 trillion of assets under management. Such a mind-boggling sum of money jolts me away from my thoughts on Tesco’s special offers.

VETERAN

Nick is a veteran of the global financial sector having spent many years working for major international financial institutions such as Citibank, Barings Asset Management and HSBC in locations including London, Luxembourg and Dublin.

But after all this global travel and experience, Nick now finds himself back home in Tipperary having moved to Cahir as a child in the late 80s and attending school in Cashel.

“We were living in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia where my mum and dad had met. My mum, who is from Tipperary, was a nurse in Riyadh and my dad worked in the oil industry. We moved to Cahir in Tipperary in 1989 not long before the first Gulf War. I went to school in Cashel at The Deanery just down the road from these offices, and I then went to secondary school in Dublin and then to university at Trinity College. Cahir is still my home and has been since day one of arriving in Ireland,” Nick.

I asked Nick why Cashel was chosen to be a key office for a huge global company in the financial service sector when such a major presence had never previously existed in the town or the county.

“The genesis of Cashel and Waystone was the acquisition of AVCS, a finance company in the aviation sector, which had about 12 people and was based above the health food shop on Main Street in Cashel.

We really liked the staff we now had in Cashel and the skill sets we were attracting to the area. Combined, this gave us great confidence in our plans for the future and subsequently led to discussions with the Industrial Development Authority (IDA).

This property in town then became available and we decided to take it on and working with the IDA and Tipperary County Council - both of whom were incredibly supportive - we set about our growth plans.