42 BUSINESS PLUS JULY 2018

M ark Thorne rose to the top ofthe legal game early in hiscareer. The managingpartner of Dillon Eustace

has been with the firm since it wasestablished in 1992, and he assumedthe lead management role in 2004.Premier division law firms in Dublinusually swap around the boss roleevery three or six years, so Thorne’slongevity in the position is quiteunusual.Dillon Eustace started out with

seven lawyers and is now up to 92. In

terms of size, Dillon Eustace iscurrently ranked eighth in the Irishmarket by UK trade publication LegalBusiness. The top six firms have over200 solicitors employed, with thebiggest, A&L Goodbody, having 293. Not that Thorne is bothered. “We’ve

enjoyed very significant growth and,we would contend, proportionallymore than the Big 6. We haven’t setourselves a number as a target becausethat’s not what we are about,” he says.“We are not in this to be the biggestfirm. It’s about doing good quality

work for quality clients with qualitypeople, and giving people a goodenvironment in which to grow theircareers long-term.”Dillon Eustace was one of the first

Dublin law firms to make the move tothe docklands. The office on Sir JohnRogerson’s Quay is two doors downfrom The Ferryman pub, overlookingthe Samuel Beckett Bridge. The officeis modern but understated rather thanshowy, not at all like some of the glasspalazzos of some peer firms elsewhereon the quays. For the most part, DillonEustace operates under the radar,servicing the legal requirements ofIreland’s massive funds sector andvarious types of financial clients.Thorne (48) was a trainee solicitor

when Dillon Eustace came into being.The firm’s origin was a row at CawleySheerin Wynne, which in the early1990s was a leading commercialpractice and where Tony O’Reilly was apartner. David Dillon, Kieran Cowhey,Paul Gill and Paul Eustace split fromthe mothership for a basement office inGrand Canal House, home toCambridge Finance. The founders tookabout a dozen people with them,including young Thorne.

The booming financial funds sector in Ireland has beengood for law firm Dillon Eustace. The aftermath of the

economic crash opened up new opportunities too, writes Nick Mulcahy

Mark Thorne, Dillon Eustace

The BreakawayThat Grew ToBe A Player

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BUSINESS PLUS JULY 2018 43

INTERVIEW

“I was training with one of thelawyers who left Cawley SheerinWynne and it looked like I would losemy job, which was unnerving in 1992not least as I had debt resulting fromthe cost of Blackhall Place tuition,”Thorne recalls. “Thankfully the callcame from David Dillon asking did Iwant to join the new outfit.”

Dillon Eustace set out to be abroad commercial law firm butfrom the start there was a focus

on financial services. Over the pastthree decades, government policy hasbeen directed at making Ireland afriendly jurisdiction for fund managersand fund operators to do business. Thisstrategy has operated in tandem withthe development of a single market forinvestment funds across the EU, andhas been very successful.The latest data indicates that the

number of Irish-domiciled UCITSfunds has grown from 2,100 in 2004 to4,300 this year. In the same period, thenumber of Irish-domiciled AlternativeInvestment Funds has increased from

1,600 to 2,500. Non-domiciled fundsare administered from Ireland too, andthey amount to another 7,300 funds.The sector took a sharp dip in 2009

and 2010, but since then it has beenonwards and upwards. The CentralBank of Ireland stated recently that netsales for Irish-domiciled funds was€298bn in 2017, representing over 30%of net sales into all European funds. Assets under management now

amount to €2.4 trillion for Irish-domiciled funds and €2 trillion ofnon-domiciled funds administered inIreland. All this money sloshingaround requires back-office processing,with an estimated 16,000 peoplerelying on the sector for employment.Every fund that wants to establish in

Ireland as its legal base requires legalassistance for the initial structuringand recurring regulatory and

contractual matters. Other law firmsscramble for a slice of this lucrativeaction too, but Dillon Eustace was inearly and has maintained a strongleading market position. When Japanese banks established

outposts in the IFSC, Dillon Eustaceacted for some of them and thenopened an office in Tokyo to keep intouch with Asian clients. Anothermajor global funds centre is theCayman Islands, so for strategicreasons Dillon Eustace has an officethere too.As the funds sector in Ireland grew

through the 1990s, so did DillonEustace. Thorne recalls that theoperating structure in the firm wasquite relaxed during this period. “We came from a firm where the

partners got tea in cups and thecontinued on page 44

‘There is no ‘Mr’ and all of the doors are openhere, it’s a much more relaxed environment’

PROFILE

Work has changed. Congestionand limited commercial officespace has forced employees

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This telecommuting trend is accelerating, as half of the UK’s workforceexpect to be working remotely – or have the facility to do so – by 2020,according to the Office of National Statistics.

Outside of operational and transit difficulties, companies are beginningto embrace remote working for strategic human resources purposes.

This has yielded benefits, as a recent Gallup Survey highlighted thatfour out of ten telecommuters were more likely to feel engaged with theirwork than regular office goers.

Well-documented talent gaps in STEM fields have forced companies,particularly those operating in software, to seek and enable globalremote talent.

Barriers to remote working, usuallyassociated with legacy culture orsenior management reluctance, arebeginning to melt away. Blueface’srecent BCT Research revealed that fourout of five employers in Ireland nowembrace remote work.

No longer restricted by physicalphone lines and office spaces,communications infrastructure hasevolved with the global workforce.Modern phone systems such as

Blueface’s Unified Communications are IP-powered and backedup by an ever-evolving internet infrastructure.

These systems feature an array of collaboration tools that used to bespread across multiple machines. Virtual numbering has enabledcompanies to immediately set up new locations with familiar locally-dialled numbers, regardless of where they are.

Importantly, Blueface’s Unified Communications also enables in-platform video conferencing, which according the HBR helps 87% ofremote workers feel more connected. For these reasons, it is vital thatemployers understand their strategic approach to the flexible workforcemindset sweeping the business landscape.

Blueface.com

Enhance Collaboration with Blueface VoIP Phone SystemsBarriers to remote working are beginning to melt away, explains Joe Roche,Head of Content at Blueface

42-43-44 Mark_Thorne.qxp_Layout 1 28/06/2018 14:38 Page 43

solicitors got tea in mugs,” he says. “Itwas quite regimented and we kind ofrebelled against that. There is no ‘Mr’and all of the doors are open here, it’s amuch more relaxed environment.“When I was appointed managing

partner in 2004, the firm was startingto get to a size that required morestructure. Ahead of the crash in2008/09, we started to take the footoff the accelerator and temperexpectations around headcount andsalaries. We were reasonably wellpositioned going into the downturn,and we survived it reasonably well.Then there was a period ofreorganisation, which I enjoyed doing.”Thorne describes his management

style as based on consensus, with anopen-door policy to other people’sideas. A keen golfer, who now spendsmore time caddying for his kids thanplaying, Thorne has a combative sidetoo. Dillon Eustace has a busylitigation division and, unusuallyamong law firms with a financial focus,Dillon Eustace maintains its expertisein defamation law.

In recent years, the firm has beenengaged in more M&A, bankingand property work too, and recently

advised Merrion Capital on itstakeover by Cantor Fitzgerald, andSW3 on the Exo building, soon to bethe tallest building in DublinThe aftermath of the financial crash

resulted in new opportunities forDillon Eustace. In particular, bankingand structured finance became agrowth area. As outsiders were invitedinto Ireland to pick over the bones ofthe Celtic Tiger carcass, lawyers had tocome up with clever, tax-efficient waysto package the acquisition and disposalactivity.According to Thorne: “We had quite

a lot of work in non-performing loantransactions offshore in non-Irishassets for international clients beforethe crash. That was still quite busy, butthen obviously as everyone realisedwhat was happening in Ireland, theloan acquirers of the world started tofocus their attention here.

“We knew many of those players, sowe became involved in acquisitions ofNon Performing Loans (NPL), as wellas advising Nama on the structuringon some of its disposals and thetransfer of loan assets from the banksto Nama. That has given us a biggerprofile domestically than we hadbefore. We have experiencedsubstantial domestic growth in realestate in the last year and our bankingteam is now one of the biggest in theDublin market.”

Post-crash, the domestic banksweren’t lending. This opened thedoor for overseas private equity

and credit funds that scour the worldfor turnaround opportunities and stepin to provide credit when banks arenot able to lend.“If you read the papers you would

have thought we were the only countryto have a financial crisis but it hashappened everywhere,” says Thorne.“While as a nation we beat ourselvesup about the fact that our banks wentbust, the same thing happened in the US, Korea, Japan, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal and the UK. Inall of these jurisdictions you find thatnon-bank lending is a great support to the business infrastructure, because you need credit to get thingsgoing again.“Ireland needed the influx of

international capital to kickstart theeconomy and I think it certainly did.You can see large overseas investorsinvolved in significant commercial andresidential property developmentprojects in Dublin and elsewhere inthe country.”Acquirers of NPLs want to turn a

profit on their investment, which insome cases will mean dispossessingborrowers from their property asset,whether it’s a dwelling home or buy-to-let investment. Ed Sibley,deputy governor of the Central Bank,remarked recently that lenders should have the ability to realise theunderlying security if the borrowerdefaults on the loan.At the end of 2017, c.48,000 home

loans and c.18,000 BTL loans were more than three months inarrears. Within these figures, 29,000 home loans and 13,000 BTL loans are greater than two years past due.“Particularly where borrowers are

not engaging, and the hole is simplygetting bigger, a functioning securedlending market has to have meaning tothat security,” said Sibley. “There arecosts to all other borrowers throughthe impact on secured lending pricingwhere this security is undermined. Ifwe want a functioning mortgagemarket, where secured lending ispriced in a different way to unsecured,then that security must meansomething.”In Sibley’s view, portfolio sales are a

necessary approach for banks toaddress non-performing mortgageloans. Permanent TSB is pressingahead with the disposal of €2.2bnworth of NPLs this summer, and AIBand Ulster Bank also have NPLportfolio sales in the offing. This isalarming Fianna Fáil, which hasintroduced legislation to heap moreCentral Bank regulation on ‘vulturefund’ activities.As Dillon Eustace acts for some of

the NPL loan acquirers, Thorne canunderstand Sibley’s viewpoint, thoughhe is nuanced with his comments. “In every jurisdiction there are issuesaround the balance between thecapacity of lenders to enforce theirsecurity and a desire to ensure thatpeople are kept in their homes,” hesays. “There is also the social dynamicin terms of two people living in housesside by side, with one paying theirmortgage and the other defaulting.How do you balance their respectivechallenges? “It’s also the case that mortgage rates

will continue to be higher in Irelandthan elsewhere in Europe ifenforcement is difficult. Similarly, loanacquirers will factor in theenforcement factor when acquiringNPLs from banks, which means thatthe price that banks can get for theloans goes down, in which case maybethey need more capital. “So, it’s a balancing act which

unfortunately from a social perspectiveis very difficult to get right. I don’tenvy people who have to make thosedecisions.”

INTERVIEW

44 BUSINESS PLUS JULY 2018

‘Ireland needed the influx of internationalcapital to kick start the economy’

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