Mortgage Advice Bureau Regulatory News (MAB1)

24 May 2023

Mortgage Advice Bureau (Holdings) plc ("MAB" or "the Group")

AGM Statement

Mortgage Advice Bureau (Holdings) plc (AIM:MAB1.L) will hold its Annual General Meeting at 2pm today during which the Non-Executive Chair, Katherine Innes Ker, will make the following statement:

"In an ongoing challenging environment, we continue to demonstrate the strength of MAB's model and resilience in adviser numbers and mortgage completions against a significantly weaker market backdrop. This positions the Group well for subsequent market recovery.

"Our Adviser numbers have stabilised in Q2 at 2,1221 advisers on 19 May 2023. We expect our existing Appointed Representative firms to start growing their adviser numbers again later in the year, most likely as consumer confidence improves further when there is more certainty around the outlook for mortgage interest rates and our firms can plan with a greater degree of certainty. Our pipeline of incoming new Appointed Representatives has grown strongly this year.

"As expected, the value of completions in the wider market was slower in Q1 2023 with a 21% reduction in new mortgage lending2 compared to last year. MAB's total mortgage completions for Q1 2023 were broadly stable at £5.8bn (2022: £5.9bn). Our new mortgage completions were £4.4bn (2022: £4.9bn) with the balance of £1.4bn (2022: £1.0bn) being Product Transfers. We have continued to grow our market share, which has been achieved despite a reduction in the number of advisers since Q4 2022.

"During the six months following the mini-budget, new mortgage approvals across the market were down by as much as 40% versus the prior year. There are early signs of increasing activity and mortgage approval levels have now gradually started to improve, but remain significantly lower than for the equivalent period last year.

"MAB's performance, despite challenging market conditions, remains in line with the Board's expectations with further improvement expected in the second-half of the year."

1 Includes 139 Fluent advisers as at 19 May 2023 (76 advisers in the first charge mortgages division, 49 in the secured personal loans division, 8 in the later life division, and 6 in the bridging finance division). Includes a total of 183 advisers at 19 May 2023 who are later life advisers or advisers in directly authorised firms that use MAB's subsidiary, Auxilium, a specialist protection service provider, for protection. For both later life and directly authorised advisers the fees received by MAB represent the net income received by MAB as there are no commission payouts made by MAB.

2 UK Finance, product transfer lending figures not available until 7 June.

Enquiries:

Media Enquiries: investor.relations@mab.org.uk