The Aussie brokers pitching ASX stories to London’s big money

afr.com:

London | There are many ways to measure the pandemic’s disappearance into the rear vision mirror. One prime indicator, in the past six months, has been the heavy traffic in business class on QF1, the flight to London.

Just like the old days, the chief executives of ASX-listed companies have been busy doing the rounds here, spruiking their narratives to big London-based institutional investors.

Hyde Park Partners’ Alex McGee, Edward Delany and Philip Beard. Grainne Quinlan

But in one respect, it’s not like the old days. Until about six years ago, pretty much every investment bank had an Australian broking desk in London. Many were staffed, of course, by expat Aussies.

These brokers would run the investor roadshows for visiting ASX companies, and do the accompanying analysis or research. It was a brisk, competitive business. But almost overnight, it fell off a cliff.

The European Union’s MIFID 2 regulations, which were designed to improve the finance industry’s transparency, prevented the banks from using their broking services as a potentially loss-leading calling card. The fees and costs had to be made clear upfront; and once that happened, clients no longer wanted to pay.

Broking operations began downsizing. That meant some of those Aussie brokers were left at a loose end. It also left quite a few Australian companies unsure where to turn when they wanted an intro to big British investors.

Among the brokers with time on their hands were Edward Delany, who had been the Aussie wrangler at Credit Suisse, and Philip Beard at Citigroup (who also, many decades ago, had my job as London correspondent for The Australian Financial Review – but that’s another story). They decided to have a crack at a new business model.

Delany