Mark Bouris to reveal more on Monday
Mortgage broker network Yellow Brick Road Home Loans, founded by entrepreneur Mark Bouris, entered a trading halt on the Australian Securities Exchange on Thursday as the future of the company remains uncertain.
Founded by Bouris in 2007, Yellow Brick Road reportedly released a statement saying it would announce plans to delist, and YBR executive chairman Bouris told The Australian that there would be no further comment till Monday when the company would advise the market about its future direction.
According to The Australian, plans to delist were revealed on Thursday morning following a short trading session which saw Yellow Brick Road shares fall 3.3% to 5.8c in under an hour.
An ASX market announcement on Thursday confirmed Yellow Brick Road was in a trading halt following a request from the company and would remain in place at ASX’s discretion until the commencement of normal market trading on Monday or until YBR releases a statement.
In August, Yellow Brick Road released its FY23 results showing earnings before tax, depreciation and amortisation had dropped 54% from $2.5 million in the 2022 financial year to $1.2 million in FY23. Its loan book had jumped 6.8% to $63bn.
The report showed the $2.2bn in loan settlements was down 7% on FY22, which was a record year.
The company said aggressive competition from large banks, fewer loans being sought because of interest rate rises and the high number of borrowers refinancing loans were the main reasons for FY23’s decline in results.
Its plans to address the FY23 shortfall include growing franchise and broker networks, increasing the sales of its own funded products, using data to understand its customers, and transforming into a “digital company”.
In the FY23 report, Bouris said the business was “striving to meet the needs of consumers and mortgage brokers during unprecedented market conditions”.
According to the report, 118 brokers work for Yellow Brick Road through its franchise model. Other parts of the business include broker aggregator Vow Financial and lending arm Resi, which offers white label loans.
Vow Financial became part of the Yellow Brick Road Group in 2014. It has more than 1,200 brokers, a loan book of almost $54 billion and recorded $17.3bn in settlements in FY23.
Bouris, a well-known and widely respected figure in the financial services industry, who founded Wizard Home Loans, was the keynote speaker at National Finance Brokers Day in 2022.
