Together has accelerated its strategic investment to build a platform to support the specialist lender's future growth ambitions, says chairman Mike McTighe.
He was speaking after Together announced its quarterly results to 30 September 2017, affirming what it calls its "its continuing growth and strong financial position".
Average monthly lending was up 15.8% on the previous quarter at £125.4m, and the loan book reached £2.37bn; up 5.7% compared with £2.24bn at June 30, 2017.
The consistently low loan-to-value of 57.8% highlights the lender’s prudent approach, whilst profit before tax saw a quarterly increase of 2.9%. And Mr McTighe said:
“Together continued to grow strongly in the quarter to 30 September 2017, significantly increasing lending volumes at conservative loan-to-values and delivering higher profitability and cash flows.
“During the quarter, we accelerated our strategic investment in our people, systems, distribution and marketing to build the platform to support our future growth ambitions. We also further diversified our funding structure with the issue of our £275m debut public residential mortgage backed security transaction.
“While detailed Brexit negotiations may increase market volatility and the UK economic outlook remains mixed, this may create further opportunities for specialist lenders. With our successful 43 year track record, established business model and the investment we are making in our platform, we believe Together is well placed to benefit from these conditions and to deliver on our ambitious growth plans.”
Meanwhile, Marc Goldberg, commercial CEO at Together said:
“This strong performance is a credit to our team of over 600 colleagues, and to the intermediaries we work with to deliver our specialist finance products, applying our common sense lending philosophy to deliver the best possible outcomes for customers.”
And Pete Ball, personal finance CEO at Together, added: “As we move forward and build on these results, we will be investing further in our platform for growth, as well as improving and enhancing our product offering and widening our distribution.”