Mortgage firm agrees multi-million-pound deal as revenues rise

Mortgage Advice Bureau has agreed a deal to buy a majority stake in a fast-growing telephone mortgage advice and specialist lending intermediary for around £73 million.

The Derby-based firm will acquire a 75% stake in Fluent Money Group, which has around 420 employees, including about 125 advisers across mortgages, secured personal loans, later life lending and bridging finance.

Fluent, which is based in Bolton, was founded in 2008 by Kevin Hindley, Tim Wheeldon, Simon Moore and Paul Ford.

The acquisition is being funded from MAB’s renewed and increased debt facilities, existing cash resources and the proceeds of a proposed placing of new ordinary shares in the company, to raise about £40 million.

The deal comes as MAB reports a strong year of growth, with revenues rising by 27% to £188.7 million.

Peter Brodnicki, founder and chief executive of MAB, said: “We believe the investments made during 2021 are of exceptional quality and together with those that have been maturing in recent years, will contribute strongly and significantly enhance MAB’s ability to achieve our accelerated growth plans.

“The addition of Fluent will be transformational for MAB’s national lead generation strategy.

“Fluent is a market leader in centralised telephony advice and we are confident that the competitive advantage from leveraging the reputation of both businesses, together with combined resources to service rapidly increasing lead generation, will enable the enlarged group to grow this new market share opportunity quickly and effectively.

“We have started 2022 with a pronounced increase in adviser numbers and a strong and growing pipeline of new business, ARs, advisers and customer lead sources supporting our plans to secure further profitable growth.”