The Interview
Through the LSL Property Services has gone through exponential growth in financial
Jon Round is not a brash man. He doesn’t throw his weight around and he isn’t arrogant. He’s rather considered in fact. It isn’t altogether surprising then, to learn that he’s a qualified accountant. But Round, recently dubbed group financial services director at LSL Property Services after 17 years in the sector, is a lot more than a typical accountant. When he speaks, which is usually softly, people tend to listen. LSL Property Services was not widely known as a financial advice brand seven years ago. But that has changed. It has an existing estate agency network which includes brands such as Your Move and Reeds Rains. In 2005 it bought Linear Mortgage Network. And after the demise of Home of Choice the property group made itself known as a player with serious ambitions in mortgage distribution. It rescued the network out of administration in May 2010 taking most of its 500 advisers with it and rebranding the business to First Complete. Then in October that year it announced the buyout of Pink Home Loans taking LSL’s adviser numbers to over 1,000. It is now the top fourth and sometimes top third distributor (depending on the lender) in the UK mortgage market. Throughout this Round has been
group financial services director for the whole of the London Stock Exchange listed company. “I’ve always led the financial services activity for LSL but the role has developed with bringing in Pink and First Complete and the title was given officially when Pink joined us,” says Round.
But while LSL is a success story in mortgage distribution the wider market has been decimated in the past five years. Finding a port in the storm has left many brokers struggling to survive.
focused having been owned by a mortgage lender; whereas First Complete brokers had more experience dealing with protection because much of the team came from an Allied Dunbar and Openwork background.
“Networks are tough and lots of smaller businesses particularly struggle to make money,” says Round. “But we believe we can have a structure that gives us the advantages of a strong and local brand and all that carries with it for individual brokers but that has the advantage of being part of a wider group.”
Round explains that Pink and First Complete for example give their appointed representatives “slightly different services offered in slightly different ways”. Something he believes offers brokers the best of both worlds when looking for a friendly and tailored partner that nevertheless has the bargaining power of a large player. The history of each network has helped shape that difference – Pink advisers historically were much more mortgage
38 MORTGAGE INTRODUCER OCTOBER 2012
PEOPLE BUY PEOPLE “You buy people don’t you,” says Round, when asked why advisers should choose to run with either network. “I don’t think people join an organisation just because of branding or commercials; so much of it comes down to liking the people that you’re joining and believing the messages that they tell you. Something that is common across both Pink and First Complete is that we are committed to helping support individual businesses and helping them grow. Easy to say perhaps but harder to deliver.” Round says this is evident in the events put on by both networks. “It’s about joint delivery from the network and the provider. It’s hints and tips about how to grow and support individuals. Not just a hard sell.”
SHOW ME THE MONEY Round is right these things are easy to say and hard to deliver but he is quietly determined to prove his claims. “You’ve seen the growth we’ve delivered on the back of this philosophy,” he says. Indeed the group’s results suggest Round has delivered growth. Year on year revenue in the first half of 2012 was up 20% for the financial services business and the combined profit of Pink, First Complete and Linear was £400,000.
“The cycle of profit for a mortgage business is always to make more money in the second half of the year than the first because application levels build up at the start of the year when you’re
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