O’Kelly to head NTMA in 2015

Senior stockbroker Conor O’Kelly will replace John Corrigan as head of the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA).

Mr O’Kelly, who is deputy chairman of Investec Ireland, will take up the position on January 4 next year, bringing to an end Mr Corrigan’s five-year term as head of the debt management agency. This is the first time that the head of the NTMA has been recruited directly from the private sector.

Prior to Investec taking over NCB in 2012, Mr O’Kelly had been head of NCB for 18 years. He was head of the bond desk at the stockbroking firm for a number of years.

Previously, Mr O’Kelly had worked on the bond trading desk at Barclays Capital on Wall Street from 1985 to 1995.

“I am very pleased to be able to appoint an individual of Mr O’Kelly’s calibre to lead the NTMA. The NTMA is a critical part of the State’s financial infrastructure and Mr O’Kelly and the new NTMA board will have a central role to play as Ireland builds on its recovery in the coming years,” said Minister for Finance, Michael Noonan.

Early speculation suggested the former Secretary General of the Department of Finance, John Moran, was in the frame for the position. Over recent months, a number of Irish-born executives with investment banks based in London and New York had also been linked with the job.

Mr Corrigan took over the top job at the NTMA in 2009, just as the economy hit the buffers. In November 2010, the Government had to apply for a €67.5bn bailout as the State could no longer tap the private markets for funding. Mr Corrigan played a key role in Ireland’s re-entry to the bond market in 2012.

He headed a team that undertook an extensive roadshow meeting investors in north America, Europe and Asia prior to the NTMA issuing its first treasury bill in three years in July 2012.

Since then, the NTMA has successfully issued a number of long-dated bonds and is now fully pre-funded to the end of 2015.

“I would like to thank John Corrigan for his leadership of the NTMA and for his counsel to me during an extremely challenging period in Ireland’s recent history.

“The NTMA, under John’s leadership, has made a very significant contribution to Ireland’s recovery, most notably through the role it played in Ireland’s successful exit from the EU/IMF programme and in regaining access to the sovereign bond markets,” added Mr Noonan.