hen Matt Leibowitz returned to Sydney after three years running an 80-person derivative trading desk at Dutch firm Optiver in Chicago, he was always asked one question: I want to buy US stocks, where do I go?
Living in the US, Leibowitz was struck by the contrast between how Americans and Australians chose to invest. A pillar of the American dream, he realised, was starting or investing in companies such as Amazon, Netflix and Tesla, while Australian investors were still focused on buying and selling property.The markets were part of the fabric of US society, and when he came back to Australia to raise his children, he realised there was untapped interest in international equities investing.
His grandmother, he says, was an influential figure in his life and convinced him he could achieve anything and taught him to study maths while listening to classical music. “I was a little bit older than my peer group. I had great training at Allens and a little bit more worldliness,” Leibowitz says.“The markets don’t discriminate. It can be good, it can be bad, it can be different, but every day you’re on your toes, and you’re getting a sense check of reality. It’s pretty black and white like maths in a way.”
When the company started, Leibowitz was content to sit on the sidelines, initially just providing capital for the business, while staying employed at Optiver.But a year in, the start-up was having difficulties and Leibowitz joined full-time in 2017. At the time he thought he’d be there for only a few years, and then he would go back to Optiver, admitting he had not wanted to leave the job he loved.
Leibowitz pictured in 2021. He says his fintech will be the cheapest Aussie stocks broker in the market “bar none”.The tipping point for Stake came during the COVID-19 pandemic, when Australians were in lockdown, often with disposable income they couldn’t spend, and many started investing for the first time.
“You can get too caught up in the high price, and in venture, the price can be a misnomer because there are all sorts of other terms associated with it,” Leibowitz says.Stake, Leibowitz says, is built on four pillars: customers, staff, partners and shareholders. If even one is out of alignment, that’s when businesses falter.
This, he says, needs to be intrinsically linked to the company’s purpose, which in Stake’s case is about supporting and celebrating ambition.It’s unsurprising, therefore, that for Leibowitz, a name is more than just a name. It’s his and his company’s reputation. You just have to trudge along, a little bit like climbing Kilimanjaro – you’ve just got to put one foot in front of the other.Thinking back to when he first came on as a co-founder and CEO, Leibowitz says he had no idea what he was in for – if he did, he’d have never done it.