“This seems like great news for the staff and management many of whom worked tirelessly for me for many years, so I'm extremely pleased for them,” said Clifford.
“The timing is poignant as it is exactly 10 years ago this month that I came up with the mortgageforce concept, launched the business and three months later we appointed our first franchisee, Stuart Bryce.
“It's also exactly five years since West Brom acquired the business and I still believe that the deal was a masterstroke by West Brom CEO Andrew Messenger.
“West Brom has been a hugely loyal and supportive parent throughout those five years and clearly the business has a very strong reputation much to do with that credible parentage.”
Clifford says that one of his best decisions was hiring Kevin Duffy as managing director just over a year ago.
“He has clearly continued to build a great business, so I'm delighted that this decision by the Society seems to have handed Kevin and his team more control. A worthy reward for all their hard work.”
And he added: “Despite being my fourth start-up, it's still my favourite offspring.
“So much so, that I offered to buy back the business on more than one occasion, including recently.
“I still feel very proud of mortgageforce and know that it will continue to prosper."
West Brom posted a loss after tax of £11.2 million for the year to 31st March 2010, compared with a loss of £39.3 million last year.
West Bromwich chief executive Robert Sharpe said: “The improvement on last year’s results clearly indicates that we are starting to see the benefits of the West Brom’s ’Back to Basics’ strategy with its renewed focus upon our traditional strengths as a regionally-based building society and concentrating on our core activities of savings and residential mortgages.
“This means that we have split the Group between the traditional building society operations and those that are now in run-off, such as commercial lending, and we are applying the right management focus and skills to each.”
“The economic outlook is likely to stay unsettled for some time but the West Brom’s ’Back to Basics’ strategy, about which we expect to make further announcements in the near future, allows us to look forward with genuine confidence as market conditions gradually recover.”
