Sesame Bankhall Group nearly doubled trading profits last year to £4.1m while expanding services, its annual results have shown.
The financial services group, made up of the Sesame network, Bankhall support services and PMS mortgage club, increased profits from £2.2m in 2011. It increased the number of network advisers while the network's average productivity increased by 14%.
It also launched a mortgage processing service, Sesame Bankhall Specialist Lending Services, designed to help advisers place complex business and a legal services branch.
Chief executive George Higginson said the group had invested millions of pounds in the business in order to evolve into a broader financial services group: “In challenging market conditions and in the run-up to the implementation of the FSA’s Retail Distribution Review (RDR), our adviser support and new enhanced range of services helped to strengthen SBG’s market leading position.”
Sesame Bankhall Group, which is up for sale, has the biggest mortgage club in the UK in PMS. Sesame has 1,300 member firms in its appointed representative network, while Bankhall provides support for 1,500 directly regulated independent financial advice firms. The group also operates the country’s fifth largest valuation service.
However, Legal & General increased its market share to 25% in 2012, indicating Sesame may no longer be Britain’s largest mortgage distributor.
Since the beginning of 2013, Sesame has authorised 69 more advisers and received over 200 adviser applications for its restricted advice proposition.
It plans to spend this year developing its wealth management and technology propositions as well as building on last year’s diversification.
