Tax benefit saves Yellow Brick Road from going deeper into the red

Yellow Brick Road's acquisitions of Resi Mortgage Corp and Vow Financial last year have helped the company produce positive "underlying EBITDA" for the first time, but the acquisitions also contributed to much higher expenses that resulted in an increase in the company's pre-tax loss.

Vow and Resi were acquired in August last year for a total cost of A$49.8 million.

According to YBR's financial report the acquired businesses contributed revenue of $126.2 million to the consolidated entity.

Total revenue for the year to June was $165.9 million - up from $31.6 million in 2013/14.

YBR made a pre-tax loss of $9.3 million, compared with a loss of $8.7 million in 2013/14.

After recognising an income tax benefit of  $6.8 million, the company made a net loss of $2.5 million. It had previously issued guidance that the loss would be around $1 million but it did not recognise one of its tax assets because of uncertainty about its treatment.

The company highlighted an underlying EBITDA of $1.3 million.

YBR has a $30.8 billion loan book. Settlements were up 42 per cent on a "normalised" basis.

The company aims to improve its margin by doing more mortgage manager and white label lending to complement its broker lending, which is relatively low margin business.

Last month it announced that it would enter the securitisation market, saying the planned program would give it the flexibility to fill gaps in product segments not being serviced by mainstream lenders.

It said it would also give the group funding diversification and a higher margin. According to YBR the "retained value" of a loan originated using securitised funds was four times more than the margin on a typical broker loan.

YBR acquired securitisation resources when it took over Resi, which had a funding entity in place and credit capabilities.