Bolton , previously head of specialist lending at HBOS, along with senior BM Solutions staff Alan Cleary, John Nixon, Rob Williams and Mark Smith, all quit the lender last year to join London-based private equity firm The Oakwood Group. They are due to set up a new specialist lender when they officially start at Oakwood this summer.
A source told MI that Oakwood’s lender will initially distribute its products through Personal Touch on an exclusive basis before widening its distribution. Personal Touch, the UK’s ninth biggest IFA network, with approximately 900 appointed representative (AR) firms, is estimated to process 2,000 mortgages a week.
The source said: “ Bolton’s lender is not going to go through packagers. If it was, we as a company would have heard by now. Will it have a hundred people behind a desk at launch distributing the products. I don’t think so. It has to go through a channel like a network. ”
Mike Allison, managing director of Personal Touch, denied the network has had any formal discussions with Bolton about distributing the products, but added if Oakwood had approached it, it would be no surprise as the network is one of the biggest distributors of mortgages in the UK. “It is likely Oakwood will look at distribution through us in some capacity,” he said.
Bolton and Mike Culhane, chief executive of Oakwood, were unavailable for comment.
