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Goldman Sachs Is Said to Ask $30,000 for Research Post-MiFID

Sources said, the fee for Goldman’s full research service will vary from customer to customer.

Goldman Sachs Is Said to Ask $30,000 for Research Post-MiFID
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. headquarters stands in New York, U.S. (Photographer: Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has asked some clients to pay $30,000 a year for up to 10 of their staff to access basic research through its analyst portal once the MiFID II rules come into force in January, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

The package includes access to conferences organized by the U.S. investment bank, though clients will have to pay more to speak to analysts, the people said, asking not to be identified because the information is private. The fee for Goldman’s full research service will vary from customer to customer, the people said.

A spokesman for Goldman declined to comment.

Scale, global reach and differentiated content will be “critically important” for banks dealing with the European Union’s revised Markets in Financial Instruments Directive, Goldman’s Chief Financial Officer Marty Chavez said on an analyst call on Tuesday. Aimed at improving transparency, the regulatory overhaul prevents firms from lumping the cost of analysis in with trading fees for clients and imposes tougher reporting standards.

The bank is “staying close to our clients, understanding the liquidity provision execution capabilities that they need and designing them,” Chavez said on the call. “We have the software. We have the people.”

Goldman’s package compares with the fee of about $40,000 a year that UBS Group AG proposes charging some clients for about five users to access basic equity research. JPMorgan Chase & Co. plans to charge as little as $10,000 a year for some customers to access its equity research portal, the lowest price to emerge so far.

Some of its Wall Street peers propose charging thousands of dollars extra to talk to their top analysts.  Morgan Stanley plans to ask about $2,500 an hour for private meetings with its stock analysts, almost twice the rate of many top corporate lawyers, people with knowledge of the matter said.

--With assistance from William Canny and Trista Kelley

To contact the reporters on this story: Nishant Kumar in London at nkumar173@bloomberg.net, Suzy Waite in London at swaite8@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Neil Callanan at ncallanan@bloomberg.net, Paul Armstrong, Jon Menon