Mortgage Advice Bureau completes purchase of 75pc of Fluent

Mortgage Advice Bureau completed the acquisition of just over three-quarters of the Fluent Money Group, it announced on Tuesday.

The AIM-traded firm initially announced it was purchasing the 75.4% stake on 28 March, and said on Tuesday that the total consideration paid on completion was £72.7m.

It said the transaction was expected to be “significantly” earnings enhancing in the first full year after acquisition, being the 12 months to 31 December 2023.

The company described Fluent as a “fast-growing” mortgage and specialist lending intermediary that had formed “strong relationships” with aggregators and other national lead sources operating across first charge, second charge and lifetime mortgages, and bridging loan product areas.

Fluent's model was built on an end-to-end digital customer journey, supported by telephony advice.

MAB said Fluent had been “very successful” at winning new mandates from existing and new lead partners, and was “well positioned” to capture new business opportunities.

It was currently experiencing strong momentum, with the potential for accelerated growth and market share gains resulting from rapidly increasing lead flow as the business scaled.

The company said it would work closely with Fluent's management to drive higher margin retention and protection opportunities within the acquisition, and expected to “rapidly progress” its integration plan after completion.

“We are very excited to partner with a like-minded management team and high growth intermediary that is a leader in centralised telephone mortgage advice,” said MAB chief executive officer Peter Brodnicki.

“This acquisition is a perfect example of our strategy to invest in complementary businesses and platforms to help accelerate growth by broadening our proposition to access more customers.”

Brodnicki said MAB had targeted the “fast-growing sector” of national lead generation, by using technology to link together its key appointed representatives and invested firms.

“Combined, we expect that Fluent and MAB will be able to grow this new market share opportunity quickly and effectively, complementing the local-regional strategy delivered by the rest of MAB's growing distribution.”

At 1442 BST, shares in Mortgage Advice Bureau Holdings were down 1.52% at 865.6p.

Reporting by Josh White at Sharecast.com.