MST Marquee founder Gerard Satur brushes off approaches

Gerard Satur, founder of MST Marquee. Picture: Hollie Adams

All eyes may have been on the upheaval at CLSA this week, with US-based Jefferies raiding the local ranks of the stockbroking and advisory firm, but perhaps more attention should be turning to recently formed research outfit MST Marquee.

There have been suggestions in the market that the top local management ranks at Jefferies entered discussions with MST founder Gerard Satur about buying the business, but the former UBS investment banking executive, who has managed to lure some of the top names of Australian equity research into his ranks, wanted a price far higher than Jefferies was prepared to pay.

Mr Satur said while he had received approaches from potential suitors of MST, they had not led to negotiations.

He attributed much of the industry speculation that the operation was being shopped for a sale to the fact that he had recently received the approaches, but added that he had no interest in selling.

Built up within the past two years, MST Marquee has hired top tourism and leisure analyst Rohan Sundram from Citi, number one-rated oil and gas equities analyst Mark Samter from Credit Suisse, top healthcare equities analyst Andrew Goodsall from UBS and telecommunications analyst Fraser Mcleish from Credit Suisse.

It is hard to tell what the analysts might think of a sale of the boutique firm so soon after its formation, should one ever occur, but perhaps they could all be in for a lucrative windfall if a sale ever did transpire further down the track.

This is provided they have some sort of equity interest in the business.