MA Financial Group Limited has reported its full-year results for 2022, revealing a significant increase in the reach and expertise of its residential lending marketplace within the lending and technology division.
The ASX-listed firm, which offers asset management, lending, corporate advisory and equities, announced that growth of its lending business was due to the successful integration of broker aggregator Finsure and the acquisition of the remaining 52.5% of MKM, which was restructured and rebranded to MA Money last November.
Managed loans increased by 37% to $91 billion, and more than 500 brokers were added to the platform, bringing the total number of brokers to 2,640.
MA Financial’s residential and specialty loan book grew 98% on FY21 to $393m.
The group’s asset management business also delivered record FY22 results, with underlying EBITDA up 78% to $103.5m credited to strong performance fees and a 36% increase in recurring revenues.
Gross fund inflows of $1.5bn also underpinned this growth in recurring revenue, with nearly 80% of the flows was allocated to credit investing funds.
For key business activity since December 31, 2022, MA Money’s new residential mortgage products had done well with $20m of loan settlements in the first three weeks of February and over $80m of applications currently outstanding.
As for the performance of its other business activities, MA Financial reported that the corporate advisory and equities division proved resilient as it acted on a diverse range of transactions driven by broadened capability following investments in talent.
Meanwhile, corporate advisory fees were down 7% on FY21, impacted by weaker ECM activity and the delayed completion of multiple transactions expected to close in 1Q23.
Overall, MA Financial’s FY22 underlying net profit after tax of $61.4 million and underlying EPS of 38.3c were up 44% and 29% on FY21, respectively. It also declared a fully franked final dividend of 14c per share, bringing the total dividend for the year to 20c per share, up 18% on FY21, representing a payout ratio of 52%.
MA Financial joint CEOs Chris Wyke (pictured above, left) and Julian Biggins (pictured above, right) expressed their satisfaction with the company’s performance, saying that the record financial result in 2022 reflected the deliberate strategy of building a diversified business that could grow through market cycles.
“Particularly pleasing is the growth and performance of the credit investing business. Client inflows into credit funds almost doubled to $1.1 billion in 2022,” said Wyke and Biggins.
“Our expertise in originating and management of credit assets has proved attractive with clients seeking to benefit from higher yielding investment funds. We believe credit fund investing will continue to benefit from structural and demographic growth drivers for some time yet.”
