‘Cayman has been a great place to live, but my closest friends would still be Irish’

The Ireland that accountant Chris Kennedy qualified in back in 2009 was a very different one to today’s. Back then, insolvency was the boom area in his chosen profession and while he was happy to work in this field, the young Dalkey native decided that he wanted to stamp something different on his CV to mark himself out from other accountancy graduates.

When an opportunity presented itself in the Cayman Islands with restructuring and insolvency firm Zolfo Cooper, Kennedy had no hesitation in taking a leap. He knew nothing of Cayman other than its reputation as “a tiny island where you pay no tax and live on a beach”, but decided it had to be worth a shot.

“One thing that always amuses me is that Cayman is the world’s biggest hedge fund jurisdiction in that more funds are registered in Cayman than anywhere else, but it doesn’t appear on many maps,” he says. “When I decided to move over, no one in my family nor any of my friends had any idea where it was so everyone had to get the detailed maps out.”

The leap into the dark has paid off. Unlike many other young professionals who pass through the Caymans for a brief spell, Kennedy is firmly rooted there now having taken out residency several years ago. His Irish girlfriend and fellow accountant Philippa followed him out in 2010 when she qualified and became a partner at an accountancy firm. They are now married and have a two-year-old daughter.

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Kennedy says he gained invaluable experience at Zolfo Cooper that he would not have got at such as young age back home and is now on his third employment in the island as managing director of the Cayman Island office of Alvarez & Marsal, which he helped open in 2018. The firm employs around 20 staff, including several who are Irish and opened a second office in the region in the British Virgin Islands last year.

Kennedy and his team’s work typically involved two types of engagements – one where a company is insolvent, which involves realising the assets for the best outcome possible and secondly, managing restructuring processes where companies have borrowed more than they can repay.

Over the years, he has dealt with the management and restructuring of assets such as oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, vineyards in Napa Valley, property in China and solar farms in the Middle East, often involving extensive travel around the world from his base on the island.

From 2015 to 2020, the restructuring end of the business was relatively slow because the cost of money was essentially free but the rise in interest rates in recent years has been a boon to the business, he says.

Kennedy’s residency status has helped him professionally. “If there is a court process – which usually there will be to finalise a restructuring – normally you’ll have to be resident to deal with it,” he explains.

Life in the Cayman Islands differs greatly from Ireland. The island is just 27 miles long and two miles wide and you can loop it in an hour. The population is now about 70,000, having grown steeply since the 1980s, with most people living in the capital George Town. English, Irish, Australians and South Africans make up much of the ex-pat community.

“I love it but it’s not for everybody. There isn’t the hustle and bustle you get in a city. There is a much more relaxed vibe. My commute to work is 10 minutes in my car. I drive by the water for most of that. Weekends are spent on a beach or on a boat. It’s a very chilled place.

“The hours can be long if you are busy with work but when people are free, there’s an acceptance that you go to the beach.”

Kennedy has been part of a big influx of Irish people into the Cayman Islands in recent years. He estimates there are now around 2,000 Irish people here compared to around 500 when he arrived. A GAA club on the island now fields eight teams every weekend.

“People from home have a certain mentality and you gravitate to them. I have made an effort to have friends from other nationalities, but my closest friends here would still be Irish. Everyone is receptive to new people who come over, as you remember your own experience when you would have come over either on your own or as a couple and you didn’t have that social network.”

One quirk of life on the island is the prevalence of wild chickens “You’ll often get woken up by cockerels crowing at 5am. We’ve had a few occasions where we’ll be on conference calls with people in London or New York and you’ll hear the typical city sounds coming down the phone line – police sirens etc. They will hear the chickens crowing outside our office which is in the centre of George Town.”

Kennedy has no plans to return to Ireland in the foreseeable future and has no regrets about the decision to move there.

“Cayman has been a great place to live – it has afforded me an opportunity to meet people from all over the world to make some great friends and to have a really interesting career.”