Stephen Smith is due to announce the rebrand of the insurer’s mortgage, housing and financial services arms at its Mortgage Club Live event in front of 150 delegates in London this morning.
“We want to retain a pivotal presence in financial services,” Smith, director, mortgage club and housing (pictured), Legal & General, told Mortgage Solutions.
“We are looking strong enough to exceed last year’s £40bn completions figure by the financial year-end and we intend to build on this over the coming years,” said Smith.
The new brand aims to bring ‘synergy’ to all of the firm’s business partnerships, including its newer relationships with housing associations, its investments including building firm Cala Homes and its build-to-rent ambitions.
Many small to medium-sized Appointed Representative (AR) firms have already moved across to join either Stonebridge or Mortgage Advice Bureau’s networks since the transition began in February this year.
Several larger firms have already become Directly Authorised (DA) or in the process of applying for authorisation, confirmed Smith.
He also said L&G ran a series of preparatory workshops in February to help its larger ARs make the transition to become DA, which included practical workshops on Small-to-Medium Enterprise structures, creating policy manuals and a variety of other business skills.
Smith confirmed the ‘vast majority’ of its AR firms are still working with L&G in some capacity, with 80% of its business coming through contracted adviser relationships.
Management moves within the company, include Stephen Smith who will become director, housing partnerships, reporting in to Mark Holweger, managing director, Partnerships, and Martin Noone will become managing director, workplace health and protection.
Smith will now be reporting to MD of partnerships, Mark Holweger, instead of managing director, Martin Noone and
will be managing club, sales quality standards, the surveying arm and the specialist team with relationships in housing partnerships.
Yesterday, L&G launched its equity release adviser referral panel and, after the New Life buyout in the first half of 2015, said it planned to lend £100m of equity release loans this year.
In March, L&G’s group chief executive Nigel Wilson said: “The five global macro trends driving our strategy; ageing populations, globalisation of asset markets, welfare reform, digital connectivity and bank retrenchment create long-term growth opportunities, which we position our businesses to capture.”
