First Complete makes top 10 entrance

12 July 2010

PAUL DAY, DIRECTOR, WHICH NETWORK

When we compiled our last league table for Q1 2010 I stated that it was refreshing to see a stable start to the year.

But it didn’t take long before rumours circulating the industry proved to be true, as Home of Choice went into administration before morphing into First Complete.

Some industry rumours rumble on, but this time in the public domain. It has been reported that Personal Touch Financial Services is on the acquisition hunt, allegedly having Pink Home Loans in its sights.

Meanwhile, the number of intermediaries in the market is receiving a considerable amount of attention at the moment, with the total reportedly dropping from just over 32,000 in 2008 to around 29,000 at present.

Needless to say, not all these advisers work in the area of mortgages, and estimates of the number of mortgage and protection advisers range between 12,000 and 20,000.

When the CF31 function comes in on March 31 2011 we will have a more accurate picture of the number of brokers in the market.

Although our estimate does not stretch to 20,000 it seems to err on the optimistic side. Perhaps that’s because of the number of enquiries we receive from advisers either moving or re-entering the market.

Looking at the table below, the most notable event is a new entrant crashing straight in at number eight. First Complete leaps into the top 10 with the majority migration of former Home of Choice appointed representatives, giving it a net increase of 220.

It also shows a loss of 41 firms in the same period, which could include those that collected their cheques and then found a new home.

Unsurprisingly, the register still lists 46 ARs with Home of Choice, some of which are also registered with their new network.

Other networks showing substantial net losses are Pink and PTFS, with -27 and -44 firms respectively. This may be attributed to a knee-jerk reaction to the change in their charging structures during Q1 2010.

In percentage terms we’ve only seen marginal increases in half of the networks in Q2. But considering that during this period we have seen the demise of another network the fact that there’s only been a net loss of 72 should be viewed as positive.

Those of you who pay close attention to this table will notice that we have removed Thinc Group this time. This is because the ARs listed on the Financial Services Authority’s register are introducers and therefore different animals from what most Mortgage Strategy readers would consider to be ARs.