“The business has seen its share of major market events and disruption”
First Mortgage Trust (FMT) recently celebrated 25 years of business in New Zealand, and its leadership team has put its success down to three key factors - its focus on investors, technology and staff.
Commenting on the success of the Trust, strategic partnership manager Bruce Smith said the business had seen some turbulent waters over the past 25 years, not least with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. However, he said FMT’s resilience and results spoke for themselves, particularly as the trust recently hit $1 billion in funds under management for the first time.
“The business has certainly seen its share of major market events and disruption from pandemics through to the financial meltdown of the GFC,” Smith said.
Watch more: How did one NZ mortgage firm grow 25% last year?
“But, despite this, the business has never missed a single distribution to our investors. That’s something we’re really, really proud of.”
“The success of this business has been driven by an incredibly good team,” he explained.
“We’re very passionate about what we do, and while the business has grown over the years, we’ve still stuck to some key fundamentals that we haven’t lost sight of. Our investor-first mentality has really driven our strong and embedded risk culture, and our staff have been instrumental in setting our purpose and value statements, which provides the perfect foundation for First Mortgage Trust to operate from.”
Paul Bendall, new CEO of FMT owner First Mortgage Managers said that word of mouth had played a significant part in FMT’s growth over recent decades too, as well as its “continuous improvement” mindset.
“Our growth has been enabled by our global investors and borrowers,” Bendall said.
Read more: First Mortgage Trust hits $1bn in funds under management
“Word of mouth has certainly been our most powerful marketing tool.”
“In terms of growth, there are three key pillars that we operate on, and the first one is people - making sure we have the right people in the right roles, and making sure they’re empowered to be the best that they can be,” he said.
“The second is technology, which also helps us to enable our people, and thirdly, we have a mindset of continuous improvement. We’re always looking at ways that things can be done better.”
