The move marks a natural progression for Pink, which is ready to build on its significant market position by entering the next phase of its evolution. For Skipton, the sale marks a continued re-focusing on core customer activities, announced earlier this year. Pink’s new partnership with LSL will create a formidable new force in the intermediary sphere, as one of the largest intermediary networks in the UK focusing on mortgage and protection advice.
LSL is a strong, well capitalised group with a £75m acquisition facility which made half year profits before tax of £19.7m. LSL is one of the few companies to make a strong profit throughout the past three years, and has continued to grow both organically and through acquisition.
With the acquisition of Pink Home Loans, LSL will now have more than one thousand Appointed Representative advisers across the Group, including First Complete and more than 300 advisers in Linear Financial Solutions and across its estate agencies Your Move and Reeds Rains.
This acquisition also includes the Pink Mortgage Club and Pink ClubVIP which have over 5000 Directly Authorised intermediary members. LSL intends to invest in the good work that has already been done by the Pink Mortgage Club to enhance the proposition for the Directly Authorised market.
Pink will be run independently from LSL’s other financial services businesses and will operate as a standalone network; it will report into the LSL executive team but will retain its existing management team which will continue to be run under David Copland’s leadership.
Simon Embley, chief executive of LSL said: “Pink Home Loans is a high quality business that will add significantly to our distribution capability. We fundamentally believe that a company can only survive and be profitable with scale in the current market. With Pink included in the Group, LSL is well positioned to drive value for our shareholders, our broker and lender partners and their customers.”
David Copland, managing director of Pink Home Loans, added: “In this new business and regulatory climate, scale is a vital component in the success of distribution businesses like ours – something Pink has been developing over the past three years with its organic growth and the acquisition of BDS. It is testament to the quality of our appointed representatives and our staff that LSL have acquired the business. This new relationship with LSL further enhances our capability and we are looking forward to the exciting new opportunities it represents.”
David Cutter, Skipton Group chief executive, said: “This marks the start of an exciting new era for everyone at Pink and the deal signals positive opportunities for both businesses. Our partnership has spanned over a decade and during that time, Pink has become an award winning mortgage distribution company. LSL is the ideal partner to help take Pink to the next stage of its development.”
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