LSL's appetite for acquisitions grows as pre-tax profits increase to £25.8m
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LSL Property Services, the parent company of Pink Home Loans and First Complete, has revealed it is on the acquisition trail after reporting pre-tax profits of £25.8m for 2010, up from £17m in 2009.
The group’s revenue increased 31% to £206.6m, driving a 13% rise in underlying group operating profit to £31.9m.
Roger Matthews, chairman of LSL, says: “We are well placed to grow both organically and through further acquisitions and deliver substantial growth when transac-tion volumes recover.”
In May 2010 LSL acquired the business and assets of Home of Choice, now rebranded First Com-plete, for £1.5m. It acquired Pink in November 2010 from Skipton Build-ing Society for £1.6m.
LSL says profitability of the new businesses will be constrained until the mortgage market improves but the acquisitions strengthen its rel-ationship with key lender clients.
Although Home of Choice and Pink have not contributed mater-ially to the 2010 operating profit, like-for-like financial services in-come increased by 6% to £13.3m, up from £12.5m in 2009.
David Sheppard, managing dir-ector at Perception Finance and an appointed representative of Pink, says: “LSL is proving to be a good parent for Pink.
“We are starting to see a lot of exclusives from the network which we never necessarily saw from Skip-ton. LSL seems focused on sales and driving the business forward.”
Coventry Building Society also revealed pre-tax profits of £100.6m for 2010 last week. It carried out £3.5bn of gross lending, represen-ting 17.1% of all mortgage advances by mutuals. The society’s £100.6m profit is almost double the £56.2m it made in 2009.
Meanwhile, HSBC last week revealed that its gross mortgage lending rose to £15.4bn in 2010, up from £13.8bn in 2009. Pre-tax profits more than doubled from £4.4bn in 2009 to £11.8bn last year.
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