Wizard brokers stick together

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A number of the former Wizard Home Loans are working on forming a new mortgage broking group following Wizard’s owner GE Money’s decision late last year to pull out of New Zealand.

Monday, January 26th 2009, 7:45PM

by Jenny Ruth

John Lloyd, formerly Wizard’s Takapuna licensee, says the new group will be called Viva Home Loans and about 20 of the between 35 and 40 former licensees have indicated they will join it.

"It’s early days, but we’ve got about half on board," Lloyd says.

All the other major mortgage broking groups have been in touch, interested in the Wizard licensees’ experience and their client relationships but many want to stay together, he says.

Lloyd says he’s been in business more than eight years and his Takapuna branch was Wizard’s biggest in New Zealand, "probably twice as big as the next one." Most of the licensees planning to join Viva have been in business more than five years, he says.

Viva will join aggregator Plan New Zealand, he says.

Wizard licensees have always been free to place mortgages with other lenders if the available Wizard products didn’t suit their clients’ needs.

Lloyd says while he mostly didn’t place business with other lenders – "my theory was you didn’t go to McDonalds to buy a Burger King burger" – GE’s lack of competitiveness over the last six to 12 months had been forcing licensees to place loans elsewhere.

A lot of the other former Wizard licensees "are contemplating, do they stay in the industry," Lloyd says.

Others have chosen to go it alone as mortgage brokers. Napier-based Mark Davenport and his Gisborne colleague Steve Holdem have decided to join forces under Holdem’s Mortgage Sure banner.

While Holdem has chosen to join Plan, Davenport believes the contacts built up over his 12 years in the industry should mean he can manage without joining an aggregator. Davenport says he will also be advising on insurance, something he’s always done but hasn’t been stressing until now.

The former Wizard licensees in Henderson and Lower Hutt are being investigated by the Serious Fraud Office following complaints by GE. It alleges forgery on loan applications which inflated property values and misrepresented borrower’s financial status.

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