It paid off, however. When CYBG shares finally listed, they climbed almost 7pc from their 180p float price on their first day of trading.  Less than a year later, and the 55-year old Irishman is now hoping to lead CYBG through what could be another pivotal turning point in its long history. Last month, it emerged the lender had submitted a bid for Williams & Glyn (W&G), the network of about 300 branches being sold by Royal Bank of Scotland.  A deal could give CYBG an advantage over other challenger banks, including Virgin Money and Metro Bank, which are also vying to loosen the grip on high street banking held by Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, RBS and Santander UK.  CYBG, which is in the midst of a turnaround under Duffy, already has almost 3m customers, including a focus on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Adding W&G, which also has about 200,000 SME clients among its 1.8m customers, would make CYBG by far the biggest challenger bank, swelling its balance sheet to nearly £60bn.  Sitting in CYBG’s plush new offices on the 15th floor of The Leadenhall Building in the City, which is better known as the Cheesegrater, Duffy refuses to refer directly to the W&G bid, which has drawn scepticism from some analysts.  W&G is a problematic business that RBS has been struggling to sell for seven years, a divestment the European Commission has demanded as a condition of the lender’s 2008 bailout. The obstacles posed by RBS’s antiquated computer systems saw Santander pull out of a deal in 2012. When the Spanish bank rekindled its interest in the branches earlier this year, RBS scrapped a plan to float W&G, despite having spent £1.5bn attempting to set up a new IT system for it.  Some analysts believe CYBG is biting off more than it can chew with W&G. But Duffy, silver-haired and sharply dressed in a grey suit, insists the bank can pull off any acquisition, no matter how large or complex.  “People make comments, people may draw conclusions but on the ability to execute I’ve no concerns,” he argues, adding that CYBG’s management are up to the job. “We have hired a team that can run this bank and one many times its size and complexity.”  The right deal will boost CYBG’s credentials as a challenger, he says.  “If we execute an acquisition the right way we will be the lead supplier of SME credit in the outside-of-London market and I think that’s hugely important in this economy.”
It was less than 12 hours before shares in Clydesdale and Yorkshire Banking Group (CYBG) were due to list on the London Stock Exchange and David Duffy was contemplating pulling the float.