Ann: GBST's Managing Director to retire, page-3

A bit of interest the past week or so. The price reaction suggests the market isn't particularly worried about Lake leaving or maybe it had just got a bit too cheap. On a range of measures (forward PEs, ROE, gearing, recurring revenue % etc) I thought GBT had dropped to a point where it looked pretty good against some other listed players.

Lake owns 7% so there is a question around what he may do with his stake. Will he hold, sell on market or sell to a strategic buyer? I've always thought the end game for GBT would be a takeover but I think the international business will have to be a larger portion of the business before this will occur.

I've read that under new leadership GBT might push the Wealth sector a bit harder. For historic reasons Lake was more wedded to the Capital Markets sector