Mortgage Advice Bureau (MAB) has announced its final results for the year ended 31 December 2019.
Revenues for the period were up 17% to £143.7m, while gross profit was up 28% to £36.4m.
Peter Brodnicki (pictured), MAB’s chief executive, said: “I am pleased to report this strong set of results. Although the political uncertainty persisted throughout 2019, we achieved strong revenue growth of 17% to £143.7m and strong earnings growth, with adjusted EPS up 17% to 30.1 pence per share.
“The Board had intended to propose an increased final dividend of 12.8 pence per share, making total dividends for the year of 23.9 pence per share, up 2.6% on the previous year, in line with our policy of paying out a minimum of 75% of adjusted earnings as announced on the acquisition of First Mortgage Direct. However, in view of the severity of the Coronavirus pandemic, we now propose a final dividend of 6.4 pence per share, with the intention to pay a further 6.4 pence when the Board considers it prudent to do so.
“MAB has always had a clear strategy of pursuing and delivering long-term sustainable growth in market share, regardless of mortgage and housing market conditions. In 2019 we increased our market share of new mortgage lending to 5.7%, a strong increase of 20% versus the prior year. Mortgage completions from MAB advisers grew by 20% to £16.7bn.
“I am particularly pleased with our growth in new advisers over the last year, especially since as predicted, the subdued housing market led to very limited growth from the circa 40% of our AR firms that are linked to estate agents. Adviser numbers grew 20% to 1,457 (2018: 1,213) at the year end, and 13% excluding the 82 Advisers at First Mortgage.
“Technology continues to be an important growth enabler for MAB. We started piloting the first part of our new platform at the end of 2019 and we have now commenced a programme of implementation of new technology-led processes.
“I am also very pleased with the acquisition of First Mortgage, which is now fully integrated into the Group. First Mortgage is a business of exceptional quality which is highly complementary to MAB, and we look forward to enhancing its strong growth track record through the deployment and rollout of our technology platform and our support structure.”