The Bermuda-headquartered banking group Butterfield has named Brendan McDonagh as its new chairman and chief executive with immediate effect.

McDonagh has been with Butterfield since the start of this year, when he joined as executive chairman designate; he was officially appointed executive chairman in May.

McDonagh replaces Bradford Kopp, who has retired after having been president and chief executive of the firm since March 2010. He joined Butterfield as chief financial officer in 2009 and his tenure as president and chief executive saw the group return to profitability, the firm said in a statement.

At the start of August Butterfield reported a net income of $16.2 million for the three months ended June 30, up by nearly 40 per cent from $11.8 million for the same period in 2011. The three-month period marked the bank's sixth consecutive quarter of profit.

The results also reflected an improvement on the $14.7 million the group recorded in net income for the first quarter of this year.

Besides Bermuda, the bank has operations in the Cayman Islands, Guernsey and the UK; all units saw profit increases in the second quarter of the year.

Butterfield made a profit of $30.9 million in the first half of 2012, compared with $20.2 million in the same period last year. The bank also said that client assets under administration ended the quarter at $56.7 billion, while assets under management declined by $100,000 to $3.3 billion.