Aussie Home Loans is to buy National Mortgage Brokers, the first foray by Aussie into the aggregation sector that links mortgage brokers with lenders.
The terms of the sale were not disclosed. nMB had a book value of A$1.4 million at June 2011, based on the financial statements of its 26.5 per cent shareholder Homeloans Limited.
nMB recorded a net profit of $500,000 last year, once again according to Homeloans.
The aggregator has a loan book of more than A$8 billion and is settling $200 million in new loans a month, the managing director, Gerald Foley, said.
Aussie has a loan book of more than $42 billion, the firm said in a media release yesterday. Aussie said it settled more than $1 billion in new loans in March. The nMB takeover will lift its market share to around six per cent.
John Symond, executive chair of Aussie, told
Broker News: "Our strategy is to grow the nMB business by acquiring other aggregators and putting them into the nMB business.
"We'll grow nMB in conjunction with growing our other separate distribution channels, such as our retail stores and our mobile broker team."
The vendors of nMB include the management team of Gerald Foley, Kon Avramidis and Sal Cinque, along with Brian Jones, a former chief executive of Homeloans Limited.