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(Alliance News) - Mortgage Advice Bureau (Holdings) PLC said Tuesday it expects to report sharp annual revenue growth for 2019, driven by a rise in mortgage advisers.
Shares Mortgage Advice Bureau were 11% higher in London on Tuesday mid-morning at 772.00 pence each.
For 2019, MAB expects revenue to come in at GBP143 million, 16% higher than in 2018. Organic growth is expected at 10%.
First Mortgage Direct, which was acquired early July, contributed an additional GBP8 million of revenue.
"MAB has delivered another strong performance despite the prolonged political and economic uncertainties throughout 2019. We continue to deliver on our strategy to grow our market share in all conditions by investing to ensure sustainable growth whilst maintaining a strong financial position," Chief Executive Peter Brodnicki said.
Revenue was boosted a 20% rise in the number of MAB advisers to 1,457, with organic growth of 13%, or 162, aided by 82 new advisers from First Mortgage.
MAB expects its pretax profit for 2019 to meet internal expectations. In 2018, the company's pretax profit rose 8.3% year on year to GBP15.7 million.
"Activity in the housing market was impacted by the continuing political and economic uncertainties associated with Brexit, particularly in the earlier part of 2019, and we saw a drop in underlying average annual revenue per adviser for the core MAB business of 3%," MAB said.
This improved in the second half of 2019, however.
The company continued: "We expect the UK General Election result along with the many focused initiatives that MAB has in place, including process efficiencies and lead generation, supported by our technology developments, to generate growth in revenue per Adviser in 2020, irrespective of the level of activity in the broader market."
Brodnicki added: "We are capitalising upon our protection and lead generation initiatives to further improve performance and continue to pilot our new technology platform, with rollout to a number of our ARs in the first half of 2020. These initiatives are important recruitment drivers for ARs, Advisers and lead sources."
Mortgage Advice Bureau is scheduled to publish its 2019 results on March 24.
By Paul McGowan; paulmcgowan@alliancenews.com
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