Mortgage Advice Bureau (MAB), a network of over 2,000 mortgage advisers, has bought a majority stake in a protection provider which services directly authorised firms.
In an announcement today (December 7), the network said it had bought a 75 per cent stake in Auxilium Partnership.
Chief executive of Auxilium, Mark Graves, will continue to lead the protection provider as part of the deal, retaining a 25 per cent shareholding in the business.
Founded in 2018, Auxilium provides training to mortgage advisers to boost protection sales and grow the insurance market.
The time is right to read across from Mortgage Advice Bureau all the protection lessons learned to help the wider directly authorised community.Peter Brodnicki, MABMAB said combining its network with Auxilium’s protection expertise will “massively benefit” directly authorised firms, boosting both their productivity and performance.
The network’s boss, Peter Brodnicki, also pointed to the Financial Conduct Authority’s incoming consumer duty as a reason for the deal.
“With consumer duty at the forefront of everyone’s minds, it is critical to partner with firms that are focused on consumer outcomes to help them avoid foreseeable financial harm,” said Brodnicki.
“The time is right to read across from Mortgage Advice Bureau all the protection lessons learned to help the wider directly authorised community, and the partnership with Auxilium gives us the ideal platform to achieve this.”
The latest deal follows a series of other stake purchases made by MAB over the past two years in five mortgage and protection broker firms.
In March, MAB spent £73mn on a 75.4 per cent stake in Fluent Money, a broker and protection adviser firm based out of Lancashire.
In previous deals, MAB has raised share placings to fund its purchases along with existing case and debt facilities. Financial details of the Auxilium deal were not disclosed.
MAB’s other stakes include a 25 per cent share in mortgage broker M & R FM, 49 per cent stakes in new build mortgage brokers Evolve Financial Solutions and Heron Financial Limited, and a 100 per cent stake in another new build specialist - Metro Finance Brokers.
MAB joined the Alternative Investment Market back in November 2014. It claims to be the first and only mortgage intermediary to have floated on the London Stock Exchange.
Last year, the network reported a 56 per cent increase in profits before tax from £14.9mn to £23.2mn.
Adviser numbers were up 19 per cent to 1,885, compared to 1,580 the previous year.
Its full-year dividend also climbed by 46 per cent, from 19.2p to 28.1p. As did revenues, which were up 27 per cent to £188.7mn.
ruby.hinchliffe@ft.com
