as well as being a good sales person.” After fifteen years in the insurance industry before PMS he has had relationships with brokers for many decades.
“I’ve always felt very supportive of what intermediaries do and the advice they give,” he says. “I’ve always thought they play an incredibly important part within the food chain in financial services. “I’ve also been a directly authorised
broker myself and that’s been the market and the route I’ve championed. Now, of course, with Sesame I also see the value that the appointed representative intermediary market has as well.” Cupis, a more corporate man than Malone in many ways having come to Sesame five years ago from Nat West, nevertheless recognises the strength in what he calls Malone’s “passion and lively character”.
“PMS has been built on the broker and I think what’s made us successful is the time spent with brokers listening to them in the field,” says Cupis. “John has enormous experience of the directly authorised market and that experience has helped us maintain and grow our market share over the past two years. I think we’re a good combination and team bringing the DA and regulated network sides together.” Aside from loyalty, passion and fun the survival and success of PMS has been based on the pair’s ability to identify gaps and developing niches and adapt to fill them.
Malone himself has seen four
recessions and been made redundant three times.
“I’ve been out of work three times and I’ve always bounced back,” he says. “You have to look for opportunity. This is the hardest recession any intermediary has had to cope with in my memory and coupled to that is a difficult and changing regulatory landscape. There’s a lot more stress connected to giving advice than there perhaps was back in the early nineties and certainly the seventies and eighties.”
ProtectIon focuS After Sesame’s acquisition of PMS, Malone and Cupis changed the name
behind its acronym so that it now stands for Protection Mortgages and Savings. It was a change that reflects the business’ ability and willingness to embrace change and plan for the future. “Advisers need to think more holistically about advice and we knew they also needed to find new income streams to survive the economic conditions we’re now in. As a business we ourselves recognised we could only survive by having a diversified stream of income,” explains Cupis.
Despite the tough working environment Malone and Cupis are intent on growing the business and that means selling protection and keeping advisers making money. “Top of our agenda is reassuring staff
and brokers that we will have a workable market next year,” says Malone. “Analysts are projecting gross lending
figures for next year that could make 2012 very tough but it’s our job to make the intermediary feel there is still opportunity there for him and his clients. We are investing in our business and I think that demonstrates we will be there to support them.”
It appears to be making a difference.
Protection sales across Sesame Bankhall Group are up 60% year on year through a combination of new advisers joining, more efficient sales from existing advisers and stronger innovation from providers. “The future of advice is about more than just the mortgage,” says Malone. “We have tried to help our brokers understand and face that to help them prosper in the future.” Malone reveals he has always seen himself as “innovative and creative” but says success is just as much down to drive, hard work and “a little bit of luck”. It’s stood PMS in good stead for the past fifteen years with Malone at the helm. Although his contract with the company draws to a close at the end of next year both he and Cupis maintain no decisions have been made about whether it will be renewed. Whether or not PMS continues under Malone’s leadership is a question for the crystal ball. In the meantime it seems the chalk and cheese pair are ready for anything.
PoSt ScrIPt
As with all Dons in history there are several versions of how Malone earned his Godfather moniker. Some say former edeus boss Michael Bolton coined the phrase. Some say it first appeared in the diary pages of a trade weekly. Malone himself remembers it differently. He says twelve years ago a trade journalist interviewed him and after discovering that his eldest daughter was getting married, wrote a headline that read: “Malone to be grandfather”.
“The story just went from there,” explains Malone with a laugh. “Somehow grandfather ended up as godfather and it stuck. Funnily enough I’ve been waiting all that time to become a grandfather but my eldest two daughters are both expecting and we hope it will be early next year when I finally earn the title for real!” n
THE HISTORY November 1996:
John Malone founded Premier Mortgage Service with the backing of insurer Scottish Amicable November 1997: Malone negotiated proc fees to be paid back to the intermediary 1999:
Scottish Amicable was taken over by Prudential July 2004:
PMS integrated with Norwich Union’s mortgage club October 2009: Sesame acquired Bankhall and PMS to create Sesame Bankhall Group
Across the entire group there are relationships with over 12,000 intermediary firms and within PMS there are around 5,000 DAs.
In its fifteen years the mortgage club of directly authorised brokers has introduced in excess of £250bn worth of mortgages, peaking in 2007 at £44bn. Together with Sesame Bankhall Group the business makes up 27% of all intermediated mortgages, of which Malone says between 13% and 14% is done via PMS brokers.
Mortgage introducer NOVEMBER 2011 53
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