Managing director Alex Moulieris says this achievement is an indicator of the strength of the New Zealand broker channel and the potential ahead.
“We are very pleased with our growth over the last year and have focused heavily on building and improving our services to members and our relationship with lenders. We see ourselves as a support network for brokers and if we can do that well, it will help the industry as a whole.”
Recently Challenger Financial Services Group took a 15% equity stake in PLAN group. Moulieris says that this shows the big players have confidence in the broker channel.
Challenger has a market capitalisation of around A$2 billion with three core businesses; Challenger Wholesale Finance (including Interstar and Commercial Lending), Challenger Life and Challenger Wealth Management.
“While we are very proud of the $216 million achievement, what we are really excited about are the opportunities our new shareholder will bring to our members businesses in term of increased growth and profit which will also lead to the growth of our group,” Moulieris says.
PLAN New Zealand national manager Julie Stevens, who has recently been appointed to the NZMBA committee, says that there are a lot of positive things happening in the mortgage industry at the moment, especially with the efforts to try and grow the mortgage broking channel to its potential.
“I think that we collectively can start to make things happen to grow the channel,” she says. Malcolm Aston, National Sales Manager of Sovereign Home Loans agrees: “At our recent Sovereign national roadshow we emphasised that at Sovereign we firmly support the success of the broker channel, and that we stand firmly alongside the NZMBA in its goal to achieve 40% market share. We have enormous resource at Sovereign to assist brokers in this, and in increasing the strength, size and profitability of their business.
“We enjoy an exceptionally good relationship with PLAN New Zealand and see it as a good fit with us. I think we share the same culture, and the way in which we approach developing brokers. The number of joint ventures undertaken by us is also indicative of the strong, mutually supportive relationship. I guess that PLAN New Zealand would also be one of Sovereign's largest production supporters.”
Moulieris says that his company philosophy is all about helping brokers grow their businesses and developing great relationships with lenders.
