PLAN NZ up for sale

Mortgage group PLAN New Zealand is up for sale following the announcement by National Australia Bank to buy its Australian parent company.

Wednesday, August 19th 2009, 3:01PM

by Maria Scott

National Australia Bank announced yesterday (Tuesday 18 August) that it had reached an agreement to purchase the mortgage management business of PLAN's parent, Challenger, for $385 million.

PLAN told Good Returns that the purchase would result in the sale of the PLAN NZ business, a leading mortgage aggregation group in the New Zealand market.

Ray Hair, chief executive officer of PLAN Australia and New Zealand said: "PLAN NZ is not included in the acquisition by NAB and, as a consequence, PLAN Australia will look to sell PLAN NZ. During the sale process we will work with our members to ensure they are fully informed.

"PLAN Australia will continue to support PLAN NZ throughout the sale process and transition period. We will seek formal expressions of interest from potential purchasers in due course."

The move comes less than a year after the PLAN group was bought by Challenger Financial Services Group and only weeks after PLAN announced radical changes in the way it operates in the New Zealand mortgage market.

The group, which provides funding and commission-distribution services to brokers, announced that its New Zealand manager Julie Stevens was to be made redundant as part of a cost cutting programme. The organisation would replace its percentage-based, commission-sharing membership charges with a flat membership fee.

These changes followed a 43% drop in the volume of loans written by PLAN in New Zealand over a year, compared with a 20% drop in Australia.

NAB's purchase of PLAN Australia coincides with confirmation that the bank's New Zealand subsidiary, Bank of New Zealand is winding down the sale of mortgages through mobile mortgage managers in favour of sales through branches.

« BNZ scraps mobile mortgage managers

First home buyers' scheme expanded »

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