After David Beckham, Muhammad Ali and Marilyn Monroe, Jamie Salter's eyeing brand Trump

His main strategy is to buy iconic retail brands and broker deals to license their intellectual property

- Ravi Velloor

Sitting across from Mr Jamie Salter, it strikes me that the man practically dominates my wardrobe: the Brooks Brothers jacket I had on is a label owned by his firm, Authentic Brands Group (ABG). So, too, the Nautica shirt and Dockers slacks I was wearing.

If not for my sensible Ecco shoes he would have owned me completely.

Authentic Brands, a global brand development and licensing platform, also owns Reebok, in a veritable library of some 50 brands that include Sports Illustrated and rights to the names of David Beckham and Shaquille O'Neal, as well as Muhammad Ali, Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley.

True to the nature of the audacious 62-year-old founder and chairman, Mr Salter recently called Ms Ivanka Trump, the daughter of the American president whom he knows well, saying he had a great idea.

"She says, 'I know, you want to license my dad's brand all over the world' and I said 'Yeah, because first, he cannot do it (himself) and two, he is all over the place he's doing Bitcoin, he's doing hotels, and she goes 'he would never let you have real estate' and I said 'Okay, maybe I could live with that,'" says Mr Salter.

"Let's be honest, Donald Trump is building an unbelievable brand around the world. There is not a conversation that takes place without the name Donald Trump. And that is because he has put himself out there, as a brand!"

Attempting to corral the US president for his business is the kind of chutzpah that's helped Mr Salter, who was thrown out of his home at age 17 and never completed college, to build privately-held Authentic into a business with an enterprise value of US$25 billion (S$32 billion).