Nigel Satterley ranks alongside Kerry Stokes and Andrew Forrest as a key player in Perth ‘mafia’
Developer Nigel Satterley ranks alongside Kerry Stokes and Andrew Forrest as a key player in Perth’s business ‘mafia’, all while being a confidante of Premier Mark McGowan.
Bernie “The Godfather” Prindiville was long known as the patriarch of Perth’s Catholic business community.
Knowing he had only weeks to live in August 2005, Prindiville - also the former long-serving Western Australian Cricket Association president, who has a stand named after him at the famed WACA ground - invited Nigel Satterley to join him at his hospital bedside.
“I was asked by the Godfather to visit him in the month before he died. He was a great friend of mine. He used to call me godson. He asked me ‘Godson, who is going to take over? But he already knew. He had one simple phrase to describe Kerry Stokes: ‘He’s a beauty. He’s a beauty’,” Satterley now recalls.
“Kerry is now the Godfather of Perth. He took over from Bernie, who was the Pope’s business representative around Perth. I have known Kerry since the 1960s. He is a very decent person. Despite his limited education and dyslexia, he is incredibly streetwise. He knows two days ahead if the dog catcher is coming. He is very good.”
Stokes might be the godfather, but Satterley describes himself - tongue firmly planted in cheek - as simply “a helper”.
“I go up the plank,” he says with a wide smile over breakfast at the suave Gordon Street Garage cafe, a stones throw from the head office of his Satterley Property Group, one of the country’s biggest private residential land developers.
But he has long been more than just hired help in the Perth business elite
He might have turned 70 years of age, but Satterley - along with Stokes, Fortescue boss Andrew Forrest, Wesfarmers chairman Michael Chaney, top barrister Malcolm McCusker and several others - remains one of Perth’s most powerful and influential business people.
You might even call it a business mafia. Its critics certainly do.
Satterley doesn’t disagree with the tag, but quickly notes that Perth is no different to any other big city in Australia.
“Every city is controlled by a mafia. So in Melbourne, Lindsay Fox is the head. Then there are 30 people around him. Sydney has the mafia, so does Brisbane. So Perth is most probably about eight people that are seen as the mafia,” he says, adding that they differ in one important respect from the traditional Italian criminal variety.
“They are all good people. The Premier has business people he goes to for advice and they are all good people.”
For decades Satterley has proudly played a powerful role behind the scenes in promoting Western Australia’s interests in state and federal politics and beyond.
But the achievement he is most proud of came five years ago when he help WA secure a fairer deal on the GST distribution after a year-long campaign.
“I’d known Premier McGowan since he was councillor with the City of Rockingham – and he knew he could trust me. We formed a powerhouse coalition with Michael Chaney, Twiggy Forrest and John Poynton. We funded independent reports researched and compiled by Rick Newnham, who at the time was WA Chief Economist for the Chamber of Commerce and Industry. We all felt a strong obligation to do what we could for the WA community and to achieve a fair outcome,” Satterley recalls.
“When we secured a meeting with then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, he told us he wasn’t an ATM machine. I told him that we weren’t coming for that ATM machine. We didn’t go in hard asking for 100¢ in the dollar, but rather what was fair and reasonable.”
The GST Fix announced in 2018 by Turnbull introduced a GST floor of 70 cents in the dollar from 2022-23 for two years. The floor increased to 75 cents in 2024-25.
Satterley says Michael Chaney’s ongoing influence on Mark McGowan regarding debt control continues to be “terrific”, while he makes no apologies for remaining close to the Premier, who he says consults him regularly for advice on property industry issues.
Last year it was revealed McGowan attended a Penfolds Grange wine tasting dinner at Satterley’s Peppermint Grove mansion. At the time the Premier said there was nothing improper about the dinner, which was not a political fundraiser.
Satterley, who is a Liberal party member, has previously hosted events for WA Labor. He disputes suggestions McGowan has got too cosy with Perth’s business “mafia”.
“I think McGowan has been an outstanding Premier. He listens, consults and I think he’s got very good steel. He is respected,” the property developer says.
“So he can make a decision and it might not be what people agree with but he can respectfully say ‘This is why I’m doing it’. I think he’s got some very good trusted leaders he talks to. With low debt and a good economic outlook, this state is in good shape.”
Early years
Satterley spent most of his childhood in the small WA pastoral township of Cunderdin before moving to Perth in his late-teens. His first job at the age of 20 was WA Representative and distributor for Levi Jeans.
Later in his 20’s he formed Statesman Homes, a real estate business which became one of the State’s largest residential homebuilders.
By 1980, after selling Statesman Homes, Satterley had moved into broad-acre land development under the Satterley Property Group banner.
Today the group has more than 30 communities in progress across WA, Queensland and Victoria, annual project land sales turnover of around $850 million and 25,000 lots still to be developed over the next decade with an end value of approximately $8.5bn.
Satterley divides his time between his firm’s Perth, Brisbane and Melbourne offices and says the secret sauce of his business is “doing what you say you are going to do”.
“Integrity is important, as is transparency to earn the trust of our investment partners, the government and the banks. My motto is be fair. What we do has to be fair for our stakeholders and government but the ultimate test is the consumer. Are you offering something consumers want and can afford,” he says.
Interestingly he has never considered taking on a partner or a pursuing a public listing. For five decades Satterley’s house banker has been ANZ.
“We can nurture the assets, so we don’t have to be trying to drive the share price with substantial discounting. We have seen some of our competitors discounting by $30,000 a block. We also don’t have to engage in creative accounting to bolster executive bonuses,” he says.
The firm’s independent chairman is former Hawaiian Group boss and West Coast Eagles football club president Russell Gibbs. Deputy chairman is Mark Hunter, the firm’s former managing director who was previously the CEO of Stockland Communities.
Satterley is CEO. He reveals he is now looking for a new managing director “so the business can continue if something happens to me.”
“I have always had the philosophy that nobody is irreplaceable.” He has one son, Sam, who is not in the business.
On the outlook for the property market, Satterley expects the most recent - and potentially further - interest rate rises to trigger a further 5 per cent fall in residential prices in the growth areas of Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.
But he sees no price corrections in Perth because of ongoing strong demand and a shortage of supply.
“Perth has now got the cheapest established home price in growth areas of any capital city at a median $550,000. Our median land price remains cheaper than the other states. Then what has happened over the last month or so, the listings of dwellings has dropped to 5150, where experts say the balance of established dwellings for sale should be around 10,000. The time to sell an established dwelling now is 17 days, very low. So that is terrific,” he says.
He says Perth’s median rental price rose from $500 on January 1 to at least $550 by the end of . March.
“The home builders here are just about getting through their backlog. So Perth is in a reasonable recovery. I think from September onwards, we are going to have a very much improved buoyant market. What we are seeing now is the shrewd investors - surprisingly, from Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney - are looking at Perth to buy properties to rent knowing that the rental market is quite solid.”
Family battles
Anyone who shakes Satterley’s right hand will immediately notice his right index finger is missing what in medical terminology is called its distal phalanx. Or in layman’s terms, the top has been cut off.
“A virus ate through that 10 years ago. It ate through the bone,” he volunteers when I ask about the deformity.
“They sent me everywhere to fix it but couldn’t. I had two procedures - they even put in a plastic, surgical screw - but it didn’t work. The third option was just to chop it off. You psyche yourself up for something like that and we did it. My only thing I can’t now do properly is pull the collar down on my shirts.”
In October 2015, Satterley’s wife Denise was also diagnosed with breast cancer.
It was initially devastating, having seen her late mother battle crippling motor neurone disease.
“My wife religiously does all her medical tests. She went for her normal test and the first scans weren’t that good. They got the imaging done and they could see straight away, stage one breast cancer. It was one of the biggest surprises because my wife is so fit for her age. We were stunned,” her husband says.
Professor Christobel Saunders, internationally recognised as one of Australia’s most prominent research-orientated cancer specialists, operated within days.
After daily radiotherapy sessions, which lasted a month, Professor Saunders has said there was a 90 per cent chance the cancer would not return.
“Denise got through that well and there are now no issues,” Satterley says.
Football remains one of his greatest passions and big name politicians and business people are regular guests at the Satterley private box for AFL matches at Perth’s Optus stadium.
In 1989 Satterley negotiated with then WA Premier Peter Dowding and Treasurer Joe Berinson to lend money to his beloved West Coast Eagles to keep the club afloat.
In 1990 he also managed negotiations to convince Victorian Michael Malthouse to become coach of the team, who led the Eagles to 2 AFL Premierships and 3 Grand Finals.
“We needed to get someone who could help us win football matches. I think the coach drives membership,” Satterley says.
“Malthouse, in my mind, made the biggest impression in the history of WA Football. It is my greatest achievement in football here. I still have a very close relationship with Michael and his wife. I was the one, I’m very happy to say on the record, who tried to convince him not to coach Carlton.”
Malthouse’s record in 2015 at the club known as “The Blues” was his worst in 30 years as an AFL coach and he was sacked by the board.
Satterley this year marks 50 years of supporting WA Telethon, Perth’s annual charity fund raiser for sick children broadcast for 26 continuous hours by Channel Seven each October.
Kerry Stokes, the Seven West Media chairman who covers its costs every year, is widely known as “the father” of the event.
Over five decades Satterley Group has donated land for 41 Telethon Homes valued at more than $18 million.
There are now 103 beneficiaries for the event, which is quintessentially Western Australian.
Satterley wouldn’t dream of living anywhere else in the world.
“When the heads of banks come to WA and they go to the Pilbara, they say ‘It’s a massive thing’. Perth might still viewed by many as a big country town or just a mining town. Be we are lucky it is now also perceived as a medical town and an agricultural town,” he says.
“We make up 10 per cent of the Australian population but provide 43 per cent of its exports. I think that is now getting us more respect.”
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