Colleagues, friends and family farewelled the highly respected NZ investment strategist, Bernard Doyle, last Friday at his Auckland funeral.
Doyle died the previous Saturday about four years after falling ill amid a pivotal career moment.
Following a more than 23-year stint with JBWere NZ, the Palmerston North-raised investment expert was due to join Forsyth Barr late in 2018 in a key portfolio role when a brain cancer diagnosis threatened to derail the move.
A long-time friend of Doyle, Clayton Coplestone, Heathcote Investment Partners founder, said both pieces of news were almost equally shocking at the time.
“Bernie was very settled and comfortable in his role at JBWere,” Coplestone said. “He found out about his Illness during his gardening leave before joining ForBars… To their credit, Forsyth Barr continued to back Bernie throughout his ongoing treatments for the mutual benefit of everyone.”
An in-remission Doyle eventually assumed full duties at the wealth management business as the investment powerhouse within the portfolio advisory group.
“He built some pretty complex portfolios for Forsyth Barr that helped them win many appealing clients,” Coplestone said.
Matt Henry, head of wealth management for the group, described securing Doyle as a “big coup” for Forsyth Barr.
“Bernie was hugely respected in the NZ investment industry,” Henry said.
A trained economist, Doyle evolved into the key investment strategy role during has 23 years at JBWere – a company he joined in 1996 as his first job in the industry.
In addition to running the in-house portfolios for JBWere, he also managed the Global Themes strategy for Auckland boutique firm, Devon Funds.
Henry, who had worked alongside Doyle at JBWere for more than a decade before joining Forsyth Barr in 2016, said the ‘coup’ was ultimately a successful one.
“Bernie was smart, capable and very good with clients – he treated everyone equally,” he said. “He was also very well-liked. Bernie was an enjoyable guy to work with – he had a really sharp, dry sense of humour.”
Outside of work, Henry said Doyle was a family man who loved wine, music, snowboarding and surfing.
“He would get out in the surf whenever possible.”
Despite several years back at full capacity, Doyle relapsed early in 2022 as the brain cancer returned in more aggressive form.
For most of last year he was in treatment, spending his final six months largely at the Doyle Westmere home.
Coplestone said he regularly took industry colleagues to visit Doyle at home during those final few months.
“Bernie was still interested in everything, he still had opinions and insights on markets he liked to share,” he said. “And he still liked to have a beer with his mates and shoot the breeze.”
Doyle leaves behind wife, Candice, and children, Jake and Phoebe – both teenagers. He was 51.