John Symond’s Aussie Home Loans buys National Mortgage Brokers

John Symond’s Aussie Home Loans has acquired wholesale mortgage aggregator National Mortgage Brokers (nMB) and is looking to make further acquisitions to grow its distribution reach.

“We are on an expansion trail and see nMB as a strategic acquisition in building our distribution capability, which is no longer just focused on our established branded mobile and retail channels,” says Symond.

“Our move into wholesale broking will complement our branded business, which we will continue to expand. With nMB, we will accelerate the rapid growth of a high-quality business-to-business channel.

“This will be an extension to our existing business-to-consumer model under the Aussie brand and does not affect our existing operations,” he adds.

“Our strategy is to grow the nMB business by acquiring other aggregators and putting them into the NMB business. We’ll grow nMB in conjunction with growing our other separate distribution channels such as our retail stores and our mobile broker team,” he told Brokernews.com.au.

Established in 2001 and based in Melbourne, nMB has nearly 200 mortgage brokers throughout Australia, settles about $200 million in mortgages each month with a loan book of more than $8.2 billion.

Gerald Foley, managing director of nMB, told Property Observer it would be “business as usual” for nMB brokers, with the only change being a “change in shareholding”.

“Aussie has a very strong retail lending business, and we are a strong wholesale business. An approach was made, and it all made good sense,” Foley says.

NMB will continue to operate as a separate entity under its own brand and will continue to be managed by its current executive team, led by Foley.

“We are delighted to be joining Aussie’s great operation and look forward to growing our business with its support. Aussie has the mortgage broking industry’s leading business model and operating standards, as well as being a very strong and trusted player in the market,” says Foley.

Aussie currently has a loan book of over $42 billion with more than 250,000 mortgage customers, 700 accredited mortgage brokers and 150 retail stores.

The acquisition of nMB will increase the Aussie group’s loan book to over $50 billion, settling approximately $1.2 billion in new mortgages each month and on target for 1000 accredited mortgage brokers within the group this calendar year.

This article first appeared on Property Observer.