Rod Templeton to leave Mortgage Link, won't be replaced

Mortgage Link chief executive Rod Templeton is leaving the company in April after eight years at the helm and won't be replaced in what is clearly a cost-cutting measure.

Thursday, March 29th 2012, 3:44PM

by Jenny Ruth

Instead, Templeton will be replaced by directors Phil Christmas of Mortgage Link Manawatu and Charlie Reid of Mortgage Link Central Otago.

Templeton's departure follows that of former long-standing business development manager Vicky Devine earlier this year who has now been replaced by Paul Gill and who is based in Queenstown.

Templeton says working in the Christchurch head office since the earthquakes, which forced the company to move premises after its original offices were "munted," combined with difficult business conditions has been challenging.

"I'm buggered. I just want to get away," Templeton says.

While agreeing with the goals the board has set for Mortgage Link, "I didn't agree with the pathway they wanted to go down" and his departure was a mutual decision, he says.

Nevertheless, he's proud of what Mortgage Link has achieved during his tenure. "We've done things no other mortgage group has done," he says, citing the differentiated relationship the group developed with lenders, the way it has coped with regulatory changes and creation of the new -look Mortgage Link brand launched in 2005.

"We conducted ourselves with a professionalism that perhaps wasn't always prevalent in the industry."

Chairman Richard Austin acknowledges Mortgage Link is reviewing its cost base and while Templeton had instituted a number of structural matters such as technology and reporting systems, "you don't need to be putting new systems in every year" so the need for a full-time chief executive is less.

"We're very focused on the business. The market clearly has been difficult for everyone, not just Mortgage Link."

Mortgage Link currently has 19 licensees with 32 mortgage brokers working within the group after losing three licensees late last year when Lifetime Financial Security severed its ties with the group and moved its three Mortgage Link licensed offices under its own umbrella as Lifetime Mortgage Solutions.

Reid says while the head office departures may look bad, there's no truth to speculation the group may be imploding.

"The one thing that really is a positive, in the discussions we've had with the licensees, they're 150% supportive of the brand."

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