Sterling’s 25 advisers will become multi-ARs of Mortgage Talk, who are Legal & General network ARs, but plan to trade as Robert Sterling Financial Services Ltd.
The deal, signed on 7 March, is a joint-venture between Mortgage Talk, with Robert Sterling principals Colin Bell and Nino Athanasiou who continue to head up the broker business.
Former owners of Robert Sterling, Les Beech and Mike Maddin wanted to focus on their property businesses, allowing Mortgage Talk to buy the Financial Services side.
“This is a very exciting time for us,” said Peter Birch, chairman of Mortgage Talk.
“Many businesses have encountered difficulties in the last few years but we are very fortunate to have come through this period stronger than ever. We are investing in growing our business through businesses like RSL, who have been phenomenally successful in the past. We’ll help them to get back in shape, shed some cost and plan for growth again themselves.”
Birch, who stockpiled cash for a year and took no income from the business to generate Mortgage Talk’s acquisition funds, said generating additional profit for Mortgage Talk partners is a priority.
Verona Frankish, head of business recruitment at Mortgage Talk said prioritising strategic growth resulted in 65 advisers last year, rising to 150 to date and plans to make it 250 in 2012.
“We want to grow head count and market share to gain a bigger slice of the cake, but each firm needs to bring added value. With Colin and Nino, we found two well-respected principals and a company that brings added value to our business. We are very specific about the quality of the partners we choose.”
Director, Andy Frankish said strategically-speaking, broadening its offering and the support it offers its AR s will be boosted by its in-house product platform More Talk set to launch in June this year.
